How Do They Know How to Do That?

It’s been a while since I posted but it has been anything but boring. I am constantly amazed how the kids move through the motions of back to school, Scouts, friends, and making me crazy. It seems that there is a sort of rhythmic motion for the days that help us to float along from one event to the other. At times it is almost placid. Then one of my little heathens decides to disrupt the tranquility like nails on a chalkboard. Yes, really, I know, it’s hard to believe my little angels would have that tendency… HA!

So youngest Alexander is about two weeks shy of turning 3. I have always said and continue to stick to my theorem that the 2’s aren’t bad – they’re still cute, especially when they’re sleeping, and they still smell good, like babies. Or at least babies that are smothered in yogurt and bananas but you know what I mean. But the closer they get to 3, something happens.

It is almost like the days leading up to a full moon. It starts slowly, they become a little more erratic. You know the “I do” phase. They suddenly have to do EVERYTHING. I mean seriously, fast forward thirty years to when they have a marriage and a few kids and I’d bet a hundred bucks they’d give anything to have someone make their sandwich. I know I would but that could just be because I’m the mom and the one who does everything. Maybe it’s different for boys? Oh, please, who am I kidding!

Then they begin to morph into these scary little creatures that I swear lurk in the shadows coming up with dastardly plots that rival Stephen King’s. I know most developmental experts say children that young are just starting to understand cause and effect and, unless you are a fundamentalist Christian and believe in original sin, that there is no way these small beings have the capacity for evil. Well my friends, I am here to testify!

Our dear neighbor’s children had two miniature recliners that they had outgrown and been keeping in their garage. Each time the door opened, my two older children stared with envy at these two plush chairs that somehow called to them across the street. Well, our neighbor called to say that the time had come for her to let go and that we could come get them if the boys wanted them. Well, that was all that took.

After convincing oldest Christopher that he was too big for these pint-sized Ethan Allens, claims were staked by the two youngest – the grey one for Alex and the blue one for Simon. With Simon and his middle-child territorial temperament, I was surprised he didn’t lift his leg and mark his territory but verbally made it clear that no one but him would be sitting in this chair. A few days later, Alex hoped out of the bath and ran, pajama clad, to the blue chair, a.k.a. Simon’s chair. He settled deep into the folds and proceeded to yell out at the top of his little lungs, “Siiiiimmmmmoooonn! Cooooommmmme heeeeeerrrreeee!” I asked him what in the world he thought he was doing to which he replied, with sparkles in his eyes and a grin on his face, “I sit in Simon’s chair” and then followed it with this evil laugh that sounded something like it came from the movie “The Evil Dead.” Oh, just wait, it gets even better.

So we go to Herod Elementary for Alex’s speech assessment. As we enter the room with the grandmotherly speech therapist and the young coordinator who clearly has no children, Alex decides he wants none of this. As they all crouch down to his level and talk to him in that cutesy sing-songy voice, he looks at them and tells them “Don’t talk to me.” He later follows this up with a round of “Leave me alone!” While he clearly didn’t want to talk to them, he also didn’t want them to talk to me or, rather, he wanted me to talk to him. While trying to answer questions about his behavior in school, Alex stood there pulling on my arm chanting his mantra of the minute, “Mommy, talk to me!” After this failed to illicit the desired response, he climbed into my lap. I should have known something was coming – he had those sparkling eyes and same little you-know-what-eating grin. Then it happened – “Mommy, you a butthole!” The grandmotherly therapist who had been counting his words and listening to his intonation, etc., asked me if he asked for a “book.” I can’t lie, well sort of, I said I wasn’t sure what he said. Then my little angel did it again, AND AGAIN! By this time, everyone knew what he said much to my mortification. However, after he skipped off to have his evaluation with the therapist she told me how delightful he was and how he listened and even helped her clean up the room. I asked her if she was sure she was working with my child and not someone else’s. I was also fairly sure that I was going to be told Alex no longer needed speech therapy but I, on the other hand, could surely use some parenting classes.

I know some of these less than stellar moments are things that he has picked up from his charming older siblings either directly or from some show they were watching. But I didn’t think he would be able to use them in context! I mean, did he really know that plugging his ears with his fingers when being admonished this morning would not only block out my voice but also send me into orbit?!?!

While I really don’t remember Simon and, especially Christopher, pulling these little stunts with such psychological acumen that the FBI would assign them their own profiler, perhaps it isn’t all them. Granted there are 9 years difference between Christopher and Alex and 5 between Simon and Alex, but maybe, gasp, I’m just getting older and am too tired to figure out the developmentally appropriate way to deal with these little mishaps. There was a time when I would get down on their level and teach them about consequences and use the “right” words. Now? Please, if I had the number to “Nanny 911” I’d have it on speed dial. I’ve even made inquiries into just how young they take children at military boarding school. Of course, my children see that as a treat (We get to shoot guns?!?!? Sweet!!!).

Of course, just when I think I can’t take one more moment of fighting over the Lego creation that Alex has commandeered and is now sprinting around the house while squealing like a banshee, they stop. Of course, a good number of times it is to gang up on me – you know what I’m talking about. The ol’ everyone-wants-mom’s-attention-at-once-and-starts-the-5-minute-diatribe-while-fighting-to-be-“first”-so-they-talk-louder routine. And of course this happens when mom is either paying bills, talking on the phone, or using the restroom. See, we are all alike. The other more elusive activity is that they are actually playing together. I mean really playing together. They disappear into one of their rooms amid a pile of Legos and work t-o-g-e-t-h-e-r. As I tiptoe down the hallway, I stop outside of their door only to hear them offering their services to help each other or a wayward piece someone has been searching for. It is at this moment, I realize this is what I signed up to be a mom for and I sneak down the hallway hoping for a few moments to myself before the melee starts again.

Have a great week and watch out for those 3 year olds!

The Golden Rule OR Really? Why are people so mean?

I love a good quote. Usually those few words are gems of wisdom that are so apropos for many situations we encounter. In fact, I’m sure there are plenty to describe the procrastination that is barring me from starting my homework right this minute, but I digress.

In an attempt to put off said homework, I was surfing the internet and came across the site called “The Quote Garden.” I started thinking about the insane week that I was desperately trying to close out and began to search for quotes on “kindness.” Let me just say that, at the moment, I am quite bitter over the abysmal week I had so these quotes were my cathartic attempt at regrounding and not pack my bags for Tahiti.

It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice. ~Author Unknown

Would someone puuuuhhhlleeeeeeaasse explain to me why some people who fill positions of authority, no matter how small, suddenly feel the urge to be utter jackasses? I mean, there is just no reason to be ugly to people no matter who you or they are. We teach our children to be nice. We teach them the golden rule or Hillel’s teaching or whatever the particular higher power we follow. So what happens between the time we learn that lesson as children until the time we grow up?

Treat everyone with politeness, even those who are rude to you - not because they are nice, but because you are. ~Author Unknown

As I eluded to earlier, my week has been peppered by lunatics. In the heat of the moment, I just long to make some smartass remark about their near-Neanderthal thought processes and, if truth be known, my palm itches to slap the bejeebers out of them. However, at the end of it all, I don’t. What do I do? I cry. Seriously, can you believe that? I cry not because someone hurt my feelings or I have some sense of self-pity. I cry because I am PISSED! And that fact makes me even more pissed – trust me, this is something that has even my shrink perplexed. Now here is the even crazier part. Whenever I next encounter them, I am actually nice to said party. I have friends who think I am crazy but you know what – my grandmother taught me that, just because someone was ugly to me, it didn’t mean that I had to stoop to their level. No matter the situation, I am a nice person. Let me also say that this has been a whopper to try to teach to my own children. After all, all is fair in playground law. If you take my bike, I take your Lego creation. You read my book, I can take up play where you stopped in your video game. This has been and continues to be a doozy to explain. I just try to model that behaviour and discuss it when ever I can. Any suggestions here might warrant a cup of coffee or a margarita as compensation, so PLEASE respond…

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. ~Epictetus

Kindness is the greatest wisdom. ~Author Unknown

Two of my pet peeves are the person who likes to hear his or her own voice and the person who thinks he or she knows everything. Does being condescending fall into one of those two categories or is that is something separate? I remember back to my single days when I had gotten laid off from my job in marketing at an electronics company. I was waiting tables to make ends meet and was working a lunch shift when I encounter two curmudgeons in suits. Every other word out of their mouths was “honey” or “sweetie” and was accompanied by that look that clearly implied that they thought I was less than stellar in the intelligence department. At one point during the lunch, they actually asked me if I thought about finding a husband and starting a family. So, me being me, lied for self-preservation and revenge. My answer to them was what on earth could I need those things for? I was working on my doctoral thesis that focused on the middle-age crisis of older men and what is was they lacked in their home life and that working at a restaurant afforded me a number of quality case studies. Needless to say, I left the table with each customer speechless. Okay, okay, since I’m preaching niceness; NO it clearly wasn’t nice of me but then again, they weren’t exactly following Miss Manners here either.

Don't be yourself - be someone a little nicer. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not. ~Samuel Johnson

As a parent, I try to teach my children that they should be nice to everyone regardless of their differences, situations, or circumstances. I also try to impart the knowledge that not everyone will be our best friend, but that doesn’t mean that we still can’t be nice. Unfortunately, these attitudes are sometimes not reciprocated. Over the past week, I have learned that, try as I might, not everyone is my friend. And for my liberal, Polly Anna outlook, that really sucks. Seriously, why can’t people just flippin’ get along? So fine, regardless of how anyone else acts, I am determined to be nice. I have to bite my tongue when someone really deserves a tongue-lashings, I smile when I want to glare, I shake hands when I want to knock the ever-living crap out of someone. And why? Because in my world, my beliefs, my traditions in which I was raised, that is what we do. We rise above the occasion to be the better person. This is what we teach our children no matter how hard. Clearly this wasn’t in the Cliff Notes version of Parenting. And quite frankly, with my personality and temperament, even if it was I probably would have skipped that chapter…

There is one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life - reciprocity. ~Confucius

In the end, we are all still human and would like to think that “paybacks are hell.” Unfortunately, and fortunately, we somehow move beyond the impulsive actions of toddlerhood to reserved and conscientious adults. Each time I see a toddler at school who is in the throws of a screaming-meemie fit, I am envious and think how lucky that child is for being able to so clearly express his or herself. Seriously, think about it – how cool would it be if every time you got mad you could throw yourself on the floor, while kicking and screaming at the top of your lungs? I really think the stress level would drop drastically and there would be a number of mental health professionals out of work. But at the end of the day, we teach our children to curb that impulse. We squelch whatever emotion we experience. And why? Because that is what we adults do. I really don’t think this is what I signed on to teach to my children. To back down and take their lashes. I know I need to teach them to get along, but at what cost? Am I teaching them to give in, back down, and give up? Or am I teaching them to rise up and over - to be the better person. Perhaps the last quote can offer some insight:

If you step on people in this life, you're going to come back as a cockroach. ~Willie Davis