It’s almost Lent, folks! I know, I’m ahead of the game, but I have a good reason: I am hosting a giveaway for my new book, Bring Lent To Life. If you’re a Catholic mother with young (or youngish) children, click over and leave a comment for a chance to win a signed copy!

Okay, now that I’ve done my shameless self-promo…moving on.

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I was poking around online, doing magazine market research yesterday, and an ad for “Molexit” caught my eye. Considering the helpless rage with which I am consumed every time I walk across my big lawn, my ankle twisting on the maze of mole hills, you can imagine I clicked. A little browsing led me to THIS. All I have to say is: These are people after my own heart.

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I teach flute and voice lessons in my basement, which you might imagine can be a bit of an adventure with three small children and, uh, a nursing baby. Alex used to be very quiet over in the corner, humming vocal warmups along with the students while he bent over a Lego creation or a rescue hero. (Precursor to the autopilot humming he does All.The.Time now.) But Julianna? Julianna takes it to a whole new level. This week in lessons, she turned her back to us, planted her feet shoulder-width apart, and sang to the sunny window with arms out Broadway-finale style, “Eee-AAAAAAAHHHHaaaaah!”

Ah, how I love that girl, despite her selective deafeness to anything she doesn’t feel like hearing…

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Speaking of Julianna, or rather, Julianna and Michael…my baby is 8 weeks old already. I cannot believe it. I’ve been anxiously watching for his first smile, and we got it this week–a few, fleeting, absolutely adorable smiles. But incredibly hard to catch. I spent twenty minutes making a complete, blithering fool of myself while the dish water got cold one night. Once–once–I hit the button at exactly the right moment….and the camera turned off. I had my finger on the power instead of the shutter. Sigh. In the end, this was the best I got:

While Julianna, who torments him ceaselessly, turning him sideways in his bouncy, soundlessly and sneakily rolling him over onto his tummy (and here I thought I was making a big joke when I said she was destined to be a superspy), dragging him by one arm when my back is turned, lying on top of him…what, you think I’m kidding? Look at this! Caught in the act!

Julianna is the one Michael smiles for most often. What is this, some freaky variant on Stockholm syndrome???????

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Smiles aside, Michael adores all his big siblings. He can’t smile with his mouth yet, but his whole face smiles. Moms, you know that look, right? Heart-meltingly bright eyes, arms and legs kicking, face alight? He does that often for us. And it makes me happy to see how much Nicholas loves him. I was worried about Nicholas, because he’s such a drama king, and so needy. I was afraid we’d be in for all manner of resentment and tantrums. But the transition has been remarkably smooth, and he absolutely adores his baby brother, asking to hold him at all times of the day. Of course, he lasts about ten seconds, but hey. He’s a boy.

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Alex was home from school two days this week. And now we have piles of homework to catch up on. Actually, he did most of it while I was teaching yesterday, but it’s a wakeup call, reminding me that whew, we are entering a new phase of parenthood!

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Well, I’m officially back to that phase of my life: the obsessed with sleep stage. It’s cyclical, and varies in cause and style. Right now it’s the “how many times did he get up last night?” strain. The Shangri-la of sleep for me right now would be getting to that stage where the baby wakes up around two and then sleeps till five or six. My babysitter keeps asking, “Is he sleeping through the night yet?” I’m like, uh…no. Is he supposed to? I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had a child who slept through the night until he or she was three years old.

Whatever, dude. Sleep is for wimps.

But that makes me wonder–how many of you actually have kids who slept through the night consistently? And at what age?

Enough from me. Don’t forget to enter my giveaway!

Julianna’s the ringleader of this little comic group, and her repertoire of jokes consists of one: She signs “eat” and points to random objects–the baby’s nose, the pillow, the wall, my jeans, the phone–and giggles hysterically.

The first time, I admit, I was slow on the uptake (as I often am with jokes). “You’re gonna eat the phone?” I said blankly, and she fell on the pillow, overcome by mirth. Now that was funny. You poor people out there in the e-verse have no way of comprehending how magical Julianna’s laugh is. I was powerless against it. The first time, anyway.

Nicholas found it so hysterical, he couldn’t even sit up. Instantly, he adopted the joke as his own, wholly forgetting that he can talk.

Although–and I hope you’ll permit me the tangent; my story’s finished anyway–Julianna actually is talking now. She almost always asks for “milk please” and names a whole bunch of colors, as well as counting one to ten. You have to know the context; you wouldn’t just recognize the words automatically–but she is saying them. Yesterday her big speech therapy task was to learn to say “go home.” I’m so proud of my little girl. Except when she’s sitting motionless, pretending she can’t hear me issuing instructions, that is. That girl can use her disability to play stupid when she doesn’t want to do something. We really have to stay on our toes to try not to get manipulated. I know she’s winning some of the battles…like the chores battle. Nicholas is way farther than she is on the “complies with instructions” continuum. I know I have to fight that battle eventually, but I don’t have the time and emotional energy to deal with them simultaneously. Let’s just hope I manage to do it before Michael gets old enough to need the lesson!

(By the way–I’m well aware that today is Wednesday, not Thursday, but I have a special post prepared that requires editorial approval, so I’m doing Motherhood Moment a day early today to make room for it! Stay tuned!)

Last night was one of those nights when I think we really ARE as crazy as people think we are for having four children. Nicholas (AKA drama king) is sick, and you know what that means. If you don’t, let me enlighten you: it means he got up SIX TIMES between ten-thirty and six a.m. Add two nursings and one scream from Julianna, who was convinced that there was a thunderstorm outside her window, and you can imagine I am one seriously cranky mommy this morning.

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Cranky mama status is especially troublesome as I intended to focus this post on my cute kids. They’re not looking so cute to me today.

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Which means, since my attitude shapes my reality, it’s even more important today than it would have been otherwise. So why don’t I focus mostly on Nicholas, the bane of my nights light of my life, the perpetual “why”-asker and camera ham? Now, when I say camera ham, don’t think I’m overstating. In the home videos from his babyhood he couldn’t seem to do anything but pose and give silly, goofy giggles. Now he says, “Mommy, wi you take pi-euh of me?” It’s hard not to oblige when he gives me pictures like this one:

(Those eyes are murder. Murder, I’m telling you. High school girls, beware.)

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 Or this one:

The moment I snapped this picture my heart almost stopped, because I realized I was looking at a teenage Nicholas. I know now exactly how he will look.

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 He’s also the klutz of the family. Wednesday night he tripped and smacked his head on the metal base of a schoolroom desk while we were at choir practice, and now sports a knot you can see from across the street. Thursday morning he hit his head six times between getting up and breakfast time. I’ve known for a long time that he was going to be his mother’s child in that regard. I was the one in our family who had to have stitches, who broke her arm, the only one who had to have surgery…there’s gotta be one in every family, and in mine Nicholas is it. You know what? That doesn’t jive well with drama king status. Ugh.

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 You haven’t seen much of Michael lately. How about one of him? Better yet, how about one of him and his brand-new cousin?Except you can’t really see Michael’s face, can you? How about this one?

Power to the people, man!

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Julianna got her own post and pictures yesterday, so let’s leave off with a picture of Alex doing what Alex does best these days: being an awesome big brother.

Now, how can I be a cranky mom after those pictures??????

(I’m sure I’ll find a way. Just give me time.)

EXHIBIT A:

EXHIBIT B:

EXHIBIT C:

Well, what do you say? Willing to take a stab at it?

“Wight hee,” says Nicholas, from the opposite corner of the bunk. “I tuck my bay in!” Sure enough, Christian finds a two-inch-high stuffed Christmas ornament bear peeking out from beneath the Leaning Tower of Blankets…

…Attending Mass at Newman a few weeks ago leads to Alex begging to participate in their Christmas pageant. Because he’s not a member, he can’t have a speaking role, but he is playing a shepherd, who is to be led to the manger by an angel. Conveniently enough, his partner angel is his best (girl) friend from school. He comes out of rehearsal in high spirits. “Mommy, E__ and I are walking down the aisle together!” he says. “We hold hands!” He doesn’t understand why Mommy and Daddy have to pinch our lips to keep from laughing—or why we won’t explain it to him…

…We haven’t been down to the woods as much this year as in past years. Pregnant, tired mommy? Writing-busy mommy? Or just lazy mommy? In any case, there aren’t many days left to enjoy in the woods, so one morning I take the little ones down to the creek. I sit down, sharp rocks poking my heavy bottom, as Nicholas throws rocks. Julianna stands with her toes at the very edge of the creek, throws a rock or two, and then, quietly, without fuss, comes over to me and plants herself on my left leg for a snuggle. Fine brown hair against my cheek, body nestled against mine. We look up together as an unexpectedly warm late-fall wind sets the bare sycamores and russet-crowned oaks to dancing. “Buh-buh-buh,” she says as a bird flies overhead—one of many protowords she uses now. And it is a perfect moment…quiet, serene, and all too fleeting…

…I sit at the computer desk, and my insides flutter. I know that by bedtime I’ll feel bloated; in the middle of the night, the baby will shift so far to one side that I’ll moan as I try to roll over–that by morning, my back will ache from lack of support. But in this moment, the raindrop-trickle of little limbs and fingers on my insides feels like grace itself…

There are so many things to be thankful for, this week of giving thanks. I whisper the list silently skyward, but these I preserve and share.

May the coming holiday be full of grace, and peace, and love. I’ll see you all back here on Monday.

The one I’ve called the drama king, whose toy conflicts require trial by jury, whose every sniffle becomes a matter of national security.

I don’t think the title quite does him justice.

We went outside after dinner last Thursday to play for an hour before baths. Nicholas promptly tripped on his bare toes and went down on all fours on the concrete. Screams. Running to my outstretched arms. “I need—huh, Mommy!” (Hug.) But a hug apparently wasn’t enough; judging by his body language, the only sufficient comfort would be to crawl back inside me. (In case you missed the memo, that space is taken.)

He had a pair of minor raspberries to show for his mishap. Very minor. Not worth the energy for a special trip inside to clean them up, not when we were forty minutes from bath time. So I snuggled him for a minute and sent him off to play again.

Ten minutes later, down he went again. Back to my outstretched arms. Another assault on my poor uterus. Then Alex distracted him with a wild ride in the push-car, and giggles reigned on our street.

When we went inside for baths, the drama began. “My knee hurt,” he sobbed over and over. “My knee…my knee hurt…” You know when you scrape your knee, and it’s fine as long as you don’t change the angle of the joint? I tried to show him that if he’d just get his leg straight in the bathwater, the pain would ease off in a minute. No way. He was inconsolable. “Do you just want me to wash you and get you out?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he sobbed.

So much for my grand plans of folding the last remnant of laundry while they played. I washed him to a chorus of ear-splitting wails, wrapped him in a towel and carried him to my bed, where I could snuggle with him long enough to calm him down so I could wrestle Julianna through her bath. (I’ve never liked bath time, but in the third trimester I really loathe them. I’m a sweaty mess by the time I’m done.)

But he wouldn’t calm down unless I had my hand wrapped around his head, pressing it into my shoulder, and my cheek on his forehead. Any time I tried a variation on this position, the howling ratcheted upward again. “Nicholas, I have to go wash your sister,” I said repeatedly, with decreasing patience.

At length, he consented to be abandoned, providing he was covered with a crocheted blanket. I went to deal with Julianna, who likes having her hair washed about as much as she likes a visit to the cardiologist. When we finished with teeth, hair and jammies, I looked around for Nicholas, expecting him to be back up and around by this point.

Nope. Nicholas lay exactly where I left him, sniffling and quivering on my bed, under a blanket.

About this time Christian finished teaching lessons and came upstairs. “What was THAT all about?” he said.

“A skinned knee,” I said. “Can you believe it?”

Christian walked over to Nicholas. “Can I see it, buddy?”

Screams. Chubby arms clutching the blanket. Christian looked at me with concern. “Are you sure it isn’t dislocated or something?”

“He’s been walking on it,” I said. “He’s just being a drama king.”

Christian smothered a smile. “Well, then,” he said in his best teasing voice, “I guess we’ll just have to cut your knees off. What do you think, Nicholas? Should we cut your knees off?”

Oh, you thought there was screaming before, did you?

“Christian!” I shrieked. I flung myself across the bed and attempted to explain the concept of “teasing” to a two-year-old. Abashed, my husband came over and tried again. “Nicholas, will you let me look at it?”

Screams. Nicholas lunged for Mommy. I shot my husband a glare. “I wouldn’t let you look at it, either, after that!”

Christian gave up and retreated. If it wasn’t so funny, he might have felt bad. “Must remember,” he said, “that Nicholas doesn’t understand teasing yet.”

Ah, the melodrama of a scraped knee.

In case you’re wondering, Nicholas never mentioned it again.

Image via Wikipedia

They were doing so well.

So far, they’ve braved a two-hour trip in a car with windows they can’t see out of; they told me when they needed bathroom breaks; they ate well in an unfamiliar house, tag-teamed their catnaps in the car, and tolerated an unexpectedly long wait at the doctor’s office.

Now, at 4p.m., we head for a meeting with my editor to discuss a possible future project. We sit in the tiny cafeteria at the front of Dierbergs and wait. I try to find room in the booth for snack boxes of raisins spread on napkins, a giant bag of books and toys, my NEO, and the stack of napkins I’m using in place of Kleenex.

“Hi!” says my editor brightly. We do introductions, the kids show off their fast-dwindling stack of raisins, and the meeting begins.

Here’s what I had in mind.

Here’s what we already have. What do you think?

Yes, they do look awfully similar, don’t they?

Yes, picture books get expensive.

Nicholas runs out of raisins. I get out the crayons.

What about this idea? Or this one?

Can you clarify? I’m not sure I’m following, with my daughter pulling napkins out of the napkin holder on the table. I set it up on the ledge to get it out of reach.

Well, it could be a resource for children, to go with our adult series…

CRASH. The napkin holder attempts to gouge the Formica, entombing my daughter’s hand within the crater. A quick examination reveals no harm done. I push the napkin holder toward Nicholas, who seems pretty mellow on the other side of the table. Julianna tries to climb over me to get out of the booth. I keep talking, but I sound increasingly out of breath as my pregnant body tries and fails to keep up with the energy of 4 ½.

…books selling well… Distributors…preorders…

The gratifying sensation that attempts to puff up my insides implodes as my daughter climbs over the back of the booth and slips into the aisle. I do a quick cost-benefit analysis and decide to give her a short leash. She walks up to a deli worker on his break. He’s trying to read Facebook on his phone; she places a cute little hand on his leg and smiles adorably into his face. “I’m so sorry,” I say, leaping up to drag her back. I pull out three books from the bag. She rejects them in quick succession. Nicholas puts his raisin-crusted hand on my editor’s shoulder and leans in to say, “Batman!”

What about Ordinary Time? I pull two pages out of the coloring book and set the crayon box between the two of them. That could incorporate several of these ideas, don’t you think?

Yes, that sounds possible.

SCREAM. Julianna doesn’t WANT to color on a ripped-out page, she wants the BOOK.

I’m so sorry, they haven’t really had naps, they’re  usually much better-behaved.

Oh, they’re fine. Now about this column…I think your point starts here, and I think that’s what you want to use for an opening.

Yes, that makes sense. Actually, I’m going on faith that it makes sense, because mostly what I know is that Julianna has climbed over the booth again. She makes a beeline for her interrupted conquest. This time she climbs up opposite him and places both arms on the table, giving him her winningest smile. I don’t know whether to be defeated by her charm or come down hard on her. I drag her back again. This time she screams the whole way.

Well, I think that about covers it.

Yes, thanks for being willing to drive up here…I can’t even imagine how they’d behave if we had to drive down to you today!

Oh, they’re fine.

We pack up the scattered books, crayons, toys and papers. I shove one bag over each shoulder and attempt to hold my children’s hands to walk out the door. Simultaneously, they pull that toddler trick where they simply refuse to stand up, so you’re faced with the dilemma of dragging them along by their arms, possibly dislocating shoulders in public, or you have to come up with some other method of discipline. Frankly, I’m not sure how we get to the car, because the instant they see where we’re headed, the screaming begins in earnest. Sweating, I somehow wrestle everyone and everything into place, lock restraints, and make it onto the highway.

Fifteen seconds later, blissful silence reigns in the back seat. At 5p.m., it is naptime at last.

via Flickr”]

Image by FotoRita [Allstar maniac

Lately I’m suffering from extreme lack of creativity in blogging. Of course, it doesn’t help that it’s turning into one of Those Times. You know. The ones when all petty irritations converge on a point, namely your nerves, and suddenly all the drama of the Furies comes gushing out of your mouth upon the heads of people who only sort of deserve it. Like school nurses who seem incapable of accepting that all your kids have really bad allergies/colds, and the plethora of Other Symptoms means it really isn’t contagious pinkeye, and why are you making me come pick up my daughter from school, which causes me to have to skip nap for another sick child and go get the third one from school early so we can go to a stupid doctor appointment to be told that guess what, your kids have ALLERGIES??????

Uh…excuse me while I go plunge into the creek to lower my blood pressure.

Also this week, Nicholas has officially crowned himself The Worst Sick Child I’ve Ever Had. I remember when he was a baby, shaking my head and calling him a Drama King. Up to then, we called Julianna the Drama Queen, but she’s had to relinquish her monarchy. Julianna, I told Christian, at least had reason to pile on the drama.

The last two nights, Nicholas has been up 7-8 times per night. Last night was actually better, because at least he wasn’t screaming pathetically, “I need tih-oo!” every time he woke up. (Tissue, in case you aren’t fluent in Toddler-ese. And lest you think I am overstating the case by calling it screaming…take my word for it. I’m not. Sunday night, every time I almost fell asleep, I’d be yanked back to consciousness by the sound. Nerve-shredding, I’m telling you.

Last night was better, without the screaming. A big improvement, although being awakened by the sound of your door being  banging against the door stop is no fun, either. I’ve learned two things the last two days:

1. When Nicholas grows up, he’ll be the classic “bad patient.” Just saying.

2. I must do everything in my power to ensure that Nicholas never gets sick again. EVER.

In between sick kids, flirting with being sick myself, finishing up a teaching gig in another town, preparing for three public speaking engagements in the next 6 days (each of them a separate topic) and the usual attempts to write, I’ve found myself floundering on the blog. I don’t know if everybody’s just overwhelmed like me now that school’s started and the fundraising and football seasons have begun, or if I’m actually losing your interest, but my stats have taken a hit the last couple of weeks.

If you’re a blogger, you know that leads to serious self-questioning and an obsessive search for ways to FIX IT! So I’ve been trying out some new blog carnivals/memes, some of which I like quite a bit.

The only trouble is, I abandoned most of my old memes a few months ago, because the time I was putting into going around visiting other people didn’t seem to be translating into any significant bump in hits. I got the sense I was seeking new readers unsuccessfully while not really serving my own readership or being true to myself. So I took the plunge and found, gratifyingly, that my stats didn’t suffer for it.

And now I wonder if trying to push the meme thing again is why I’m struggling with both inspiration and stats.

Anyway.

My goal every day in writing is to have a point. And if you can’t tell, this post really has no point. I just gave myself permission to do some good old-fashioned stream-of-consciousness Journaling today. You know what else? It didn’t take very long to write. What do you know? That qualifies it for yet another meme I haven’t visited in quite a while. Now, what image shall I use to sum up this fractured, useless post?….

Image via Wikipedia

I love the way, when I threaten to “get” him, Nicholas decides I’m not getting around to it fast enough and runs toward me to speed things up.

I love the way he talks. “Tyoo, Mommy,” he says, patting his belly, and even now it takes me fifteen seconds of constant repetition before I figure out he’s asking me to chew on him. Chew, baby? I’m yours!

I love how he counts to three, and knows what it means, even though he can’t say the words properly. And how he tries to count backwards with me when I’m warning Julianna to comply with an instruction. (Oddly, he doesn’t do this when I’m counting him down. Hmmmmm…)

I love how he will try to say anything…unless we’re trying to get him to show off. And then he tips his head back and gives a wheezing laugh you hear no other time, and flings his body into whatever part of my body is most convenient for playing shy.

I love how complex his sentence thoughts are…four- and five- word sentence frames, most of his words lacking both center and ending consonants, and yet communicating very sophisticated thoughts.

I love his favorite phrase: “What doing, Mommy? What doing, Da-ee?” (Although being asked every five seconds for an hour does get wearisome!)*

I love the gleam in his eye when he knows he’s showing off.

I love that we’re making progress toward toilet training. (I know, no warm-fuzzies there, but it’s honest!)

I love how eager he is to help at this stage. He’s not very good at it, but it warms my heart to see his desire to be a big boy and do grown up things like set the table, make dinner, change the laundry. (How long can it last? Sigh…)

I love how much love he has for his siblings, his parents, grandparents, and even playmates. (Bigger playmates.)

I love it when he pats the baby.

I love hearing, “I yuh you…Mommy.”

I love you too, munchkin.

*(Note: I’m fully aware how heavily this post leans on speech. Bear in mind that I have a nonverbal four-year-old. I’ve been waiting a long time to hear speech attempts in this house again, and it’s just magical.)

The not-so-serious

1. How to chase people around roaring. This seems to be Alex’s favorite occupation lately, one met at various times by giggles and outraged screaming, depending on the mood of the chase-ee.

2. How to win anyone over by giggling. I can’t get over Julianna’s silvery, dusky laugh. There’s just nothing like it. And Nicholas? That warbling belly laugh holds me prisoner. I’ll do anything for it.

3. You are how you eat.

4. Tolerance of repetition. Repetition is not something we tolerate well in modern life. But Nicholas is learning to talk, and all day every day he walks around saying, “What doing…Mommy? What doing…Da-ee?” Absent that, he’s trying to communicate some other sentiment, and he thinks that if he says it enough times in a row, we’ll figure it out. It makes me want to hyperventilate sometimes. I have to remind myself to be thankful for his desire to communicate.

5. The law of equal and opposite reaction. The child who charms everyone also must have a dark side. Julianna had the receptionist at the cardiology clinic eating out of her hand yesterday from the instant she put on Alex’s Iron Man helmet and made flirty eyes through it. But when the doctor and nursing staff walked into the exam room, she morphed into demon child. After an hour of solid screaming and FOUR PEOPLE, we managed to get an EKG done. They gave up without even trying to get an echocardiogram.

The sincere

6. The wonder of seeing myself in them. Alex is taking to music like a mother tongue, reading music and playing by ear, transposing at the piano, making up songs—my skills. It gives me chills sometimes. But he sleeps like his daddy (like the dead, IOW). Nicholas, on the other hand, can’t get to sleep at night, just like me. I look at Julianna’s and my reflections in the mirror, and something familiar teases me, something I haven’t identified yet. She’s not my spitting image…she’s not even the spitting image of my older sister, whom she most resembles…but there’s something there nonetheless.

7. Sign language. We never in a million years thought we would know as much sign language as we do. And although most of it we learned with them, not from them, I learned the sign for ambulance/fire truck/police car (not sure which) from Julianna just two days ago.

8. Structure makes the world a better place. Occasionally I take flak for being a nap Nazi. But now that Alex is getting so much older, we’ve begun playing loosey goosey with the little ones’ naps, and the level of negative energy in our house definitely shows for it. Structure makes everything better. This is a lesson I’ve learned to apply to my writing and housekeeping and, well, everything.

9. Self-sacrifice. You would think eventually a parent would have this lesson down pat, but the level of sacrifice ratchets up regularly, and it never stops chafing.

10. A capacity for suffering. Is it harder to suffer through the frustration and stress of a hospital stay, or to watch your child suffer? In a word…yes.

Now it’s your turn: what lessons have you learned from your children?

Shared with Mama Kat’s Writers Workshop.