Epiphanies, plural

Lillian likes to lay like this when I'm reading to her at night.  The doctor says that her hypotonia is no longer detectable, but she's still really floppy and it's hard to tell if she does stuff like this because she can, or because it takes too much core strength to sit upright.

I don't know what I was thinking or hoping, but I think deep down, I thought that because she had grown out of the hypotonia, she might have grown out of the ADHD and maybe picked up some number sense over the summer.  But in the first few weeks of school, she's shown that this is not the case.  In considering my feelings about having a child with learning disabilities, I've realized a few things.

1. I was thinking about how Lillian could really use a full-time math tutor.  Someone to sit with her every night and do math homework; who was good at math and good with kids and could really get Lillian and explain things to her.  I starting thinking about how much that would cost and how much I would have to work to be able to pay for it when I realized that I do that.  Like, that's what a mom does- whatever it takes.   Your kid needs extra math help?  You're a math tutor.  Your kid needs a special diet? You're a chef.  Your kid needs a soft place to land?  You're a pillow.  It's pretty obvious- of course I'm going to be there for my kids, but it was just a moment of clarity that *I* could help solve this problem.

2.  I loved school.  I loved going and taking tests and learning everything.  Test taking is very easy for me; I could probably take a multiple choice test on a subject that I know nothing about and get a decent grade because I have a sense about what correct answers look like.  I liked to think that I was kind to everyone and respected all the kids regardless of scholastic aptitude, but I'm realizing that I looked down on people who weren't as smart as me.  I thought I was better than them.  Now that I have Lillian, I realize that she works way harder than I ever did at math.  She struggles to complete worksheets in class and then has to finish them at home on top of the homework, plus she goes to extra tutoring in the resource room, plus I practice with her every day and on weekends.  And she does it with minimal complaints.

When I got to AP Physics in high school, it was hard for me, and instead of sticking it out, I arranged with UCSB (to which I had already been accepted) to drop out with an F on my transcripts.  I had no coping skills built up to tackle a difficult subject because no subject had been difficult before.  For a long time, I congratulated myself on my clever solution to my problem, but I realize now that it was a total cop out.

3.  I need to be more sensitive about bragging about my kids.  Nora is very smart, and sometimes I get carried away telling people about it.  However, it's totally the pot calling the kettle black because when people brag to me about their Lillian-aged kids, I want to punch them in the face... or just cry.  That's great for you that your 8-year old has read all 7 of the Harry Potter books (Lillian can barely read Magic Treehouse and that's only if I'm sitting next to her to remind her of where she is when she gets distracted) but that doesn't make your child better, or mean that you are a better parent than me.  I'm sure this is just me projecting my insecurities, but I don't want to make other parents feel bad because their 5-year old can't count by 3's (which Nora likes to show off).  IT'S NOTHING I DID, she's just like that.  Its also something I need to remind myself- My parenting can't and shouldn't be measured by the achievements of my children.

They can take their well-meaning concern elsewhere

You might remember that I live next to a small-ish man-made lake.  My backyard is small and boring for a 3-year old boy, so he has taught himself (and his sisters quickly learned from his example) how to scale this fence.  The lake is .5 miles long and we live about in the middle, so he'd have to run for a quarter mile in either direction before he hit a street.  They have those exercise stations along the way that hardly anyone besides little kids use (monkey bars, balance beams, pedestals for doing lunges, etc) that he likes to screw around on.  Plus, there is the timeless pastime of throwing stuff in the lake.

I cannot scale the fence, so I sit in the backyard and watch him run around.  He occasionally gets farther away than I can see, but he always comes back.

This thing we do FREAKS OUT all the walkers and fishers.  I get that they are concerned and ask him where his parents are, but I wave and say "I'm right here!" and they still look like they are deciding whether or not to call CPS.  I don't doubt they would... remember our old dog Daisy and how they called the police on us because she spent too much time in the backyard where she had fresh water and shade?  And also it was spring so it was 70 degrees outside?  And also she's a dog?

Mostly they are concerned that he's going to fall in the lake and I'm behind the fence and wouldn't be able to grab him.  We've lived next to this lake his entire life and he's never once fallen in.  Also, it's only a few feet deep.  Also, he could grab onto the side and hang out until I could get to him... or just climb out.

Aside from the need to get out of the house and run around, I've always sort of felt like I'm doing Ethan good by letting him be over there by himself or with his sisters.  Like he's learning independence and exploring.

Yesterday, I read a very interesting article that TOTALLY PROVED ME RIGHT.

It's called "The Overprotected Kid" in The Atlantic.  (HT Bridget).  It talks about how kids these days are so supervised that they don't experiment with risk or being on their own or trying things and failing that they overdo it with the risks and end up addicted to drugs, don't know how to be on their own and get depressed, and freak out when they fail.  My favorite part was the following:

Sandseter began observing and interviewing children on playgrounds in Norway. In 2011, she published her results in a paper called “Children’s Risky Play From an Evolutionary Perspective: The Anti-Phobic Effects of Thrilling Experiences.” Children, she concluded, have a sensory need to taste danger and excitement; this doesn’t mean that what they do has to actually be dangerous, only that they feel they are taking a great risk. That scares them, but then they overcome the fear. In the paper, Sandseter identifies six kinds of risky play: (1) Exploring heights, or getting the “bird’s perspective,” as she calls it—“high enough to evoke the sensation of fear.” (2) Handling dangerous tools—using sharp scissors or knives, or heavy hammers that at first seem unmanageable but that kids learn to master. (3) Being near dangerous elements—playing near vast bodies of water, or near a fire, so kids are aware that there is danger nearby. (4) Rough-and-tumble play—wrestling, play-fighting—so kids learn to negotiate aggression and cooperation. (5) Speed—cycling or skiing at a pace that feels too fast. (6) Exploring on one’s own.

This last one Sandseter describes as “the most important for the children.” She told me, “When they are left alone and can take full responsibility for their actions, and the consequences of their decisions, it’s a thrilling experience.”

Letting Ethan play on his own outside the fence hits numbers 1 (sometimes he sits on top of the fence, which is about 7 feet tall), 3, and 6.

So while I'm glad that these people are concerned about my child's safety, I got this.

Never Trust Them

For today's installment in our Summer Fun series, we made cloud dough.  Eight cups of flour and 1 cup of oil.  I keep my flour in that bucket.  The instructions said you could use any kind of oil and I probably would have used canola if I didn't have this thing of baby oil under my cabinet. I've had this since Lillian was a baby and haven't used it until today because, frankly, I have no idea what baby oil is supposed to be for.  Are you supposed to rub it into their skin? Because I feel like that would just make them oily.  Baby oil, Q-tips, and cotton balls, when it comes to baby hygiene, are all mysteries to me.

The consistency of the dough is like fluffy wet sand, except not wet.  The kids had fun playing bakery and making cakes, and then pretending like they had kids of their own who needed cakes.  It got pretty involved: naming their kids, what age they are, what kind of cakes they like, etc.

Ethan liked it, but he wasn't that good at pushing the dough into the cups to make shapes.

We played for 20-ish minutes and then I decided I could slip away and fold a load of laundry.  The kids were playing really appropriately and not throwing it or eating it.  I told them to try to keep it on their pans.

I'm going to go ahead and blame the pregnancy for the not nice words that came out of my mouth when I came downstairs like 15 minutes later.  These shots don't really capture the carnage... but they managed to get it everywhere.  Also, it appeared that Ethan took a break from playing at the table and wiped his floury hands over every surface of the house.  I was mostly mad at myself.  "ROOKIE MISTAKE," I shouted at myself over and over again.

Why did I trust them? Never trust them.

You just never know

When we came back from California, Lillian went over to a friend's house.  "Lillian, what was your favorite part of California?," the mom asked.

"We went to an oil museum! And they had all these oil pumps!"

"Oh," the mom replied.  "Didn't you go to Disneyland, too?"

"Yeah, but at the oil museum, they had a little model of a jack house pump and you could turn the top and the pumps would go up and down, and then we saw one of the big pumps!"

Next to my father's house, there is an old oil office converted into a museum.  It's staffed by an elderly man and his wife, and the inside consists mainly of that little model, several photographs of the surrounding area before all the houses were built, and a workshop full of large wrenches and stuff.  Outside, you can see the original jack house and the pumps.

I've never been, so I decided to swing by on our way to the nearby park.

The stop took all of 20 minutes, but to Lillian, it was the highlight of the trip, apparently.

Right after I got married, I had a guy friend who really wanted to get married, but kept striking out with the ladies.  He stopped by one day and asked me what girls want for a spouse.  I told him my story with Tyler and that she shouldn't try to make himself any particular way, he should just be the awesome guy that he is because you never know. 

Thus, I find that this principle extends past dating to child rearing.  I would have thought Disneyland or Play City or the beach would have been Lillian's favorites because those were the most expensive, most labor intensive, flashiest stops, and  they required the most orchestration to pull off.  But no, it was the low-budget dinky oil museum that made the trip for her.   

Is One Kid or Three Kids Harder?

Let's fast forward, away from Hawaii, to a few weekends ago.  I had just gotten back from taking the kids, by myself, to California for a week.  It was hard, but not as hard as I remember a trip I took with just Lillian when she was 2 and we went to visit family for a week.  Adjectives I would use to describe this last trip: fun, enjoyable, pleasant.  Adjectives I would use to describe that trip with Lillian: drudgery, tiring, exhausting, never ending.

I think I was pregnant with Nora, but that can't be the whole reason it was more difficult.  I think, now hear me out, that having 3 kids is in a lot of ways easier than having one.  With just one child, it's just you and that kid, staring each other down, all. day. long.  There is no one but you to distract them, to play with them, and to fight with them.  With 2 other kids around, you can outsource all of those things.  You can say, "Hey Lillian, go see why Ethan is crying," instead of having to leave your pleasant conversation with your sister to go find out for yourself.

These pictures are not from our trip to California.  As I was saying, right after I got back from California, it was the ward camp out, and Tyler took the kids up to Mt. Lemmon by himself because I had to work.

I don't think he (or I) would have been brave enough to try that with only 1 kid.  

However, he did not attempt to go hiking.  He's brave, but not crazy.

Mo-om

I was on the phone with my mom when I heard the two syllable call, "MO-OM!"

"Ethan's painting hisself with the markers!"

Sure enough.  Don't worry, he managed to plaster himself to the wall as he was running away from me and all his fresh ink transferred.  So, now I have a little purple-orangey smudge on my wall that I haven't quite gotten around to cleaning off properly.

Water fun when it's only 90

My sister-in-law and her family came to visit us when Nora was a baby.  It was April and it was fairly warm, like in the upper 80s and 90s.  We took them to the pool.  Now, I never go to the pool in the "off season" mostly because during the summer months, we spend so much time, so, so much time at the pool, I get really sick of it and have to take a 7-month break.  However, what we discovered on that sunny day in April was that for Southern Arizona, it was too cold to swim.

It wasn't that we were being wimps either.  Well, maybe we were.  But I really think the low humidity makes the water evaporate off your skin faster, sucking heat off your body and if it's not 105 degrees, it gets really cold.

 All of that story has nothing to do with these pictures, taken by Tyler while I was working a few days back.

Just some little blondies playing in the backyard, trying to stay cool.  Story of my life.

Biblical Birth Order

One of my patients at work started talking to me about birth order and the Bible.  I'm not sure why... as far as I can remember, she told me that she was from California, and I asked what part, and she said that she was from Ojai, which is sort of near Santa Barbara, which is where I went to school for 2 years.  She said her daughter still lived there and that she home schooled her kids.  I said I could never home school, not because I don't want to, but because I'm fairly sure that Lillian and I would just fight and that she benefits from the peer pressure of all the other kids.  So she started in on birth order and personality traits according to the Bible.

Apparently, the oldest child is supposed to be very controlling and bossy.  I don't want to point any fingers, but my oldest sister's job title is Controller.  Just saying.  It's not that Lillian is bossy, she just refuses to be bossed.  She is the boss of herself, and that is final.

The second child is supposed to be very eager to please and sweet.  This fits Nora perfectly.  She is naughty sometimes, but mostly I just want to squeeze her until her head pops off because she is so cute and sweet.

For these first two, she kept coming back to the example of Jacob and Esau.  Which, I'm confused about... was Esau controlling?  Was Jacob sweet?  At face value, I would say that Esau was greedy and that Jacob was tricky.  But, she was so sure of herself, she might as well have said, "The second child is always sweet, like Jacob.  QED."

Moving on.  The third child is supposed to be "happy-go-lucky."  Anyone who has met Ethan knows that this description is the exact opposite of him.  He is not happy or go-lucky.  He mostly cries a lot.  I keep reminding myself that he probably won't cry forever, but some days...  Our conversation got cut short by my Ascom phone beeping, so I didn't get the chance to hear the Biblical evidence for that one.  Any ideas?

Did you...

"Nora, Did you eat the paint?"

"No Mom. It spilled into my mouth."

"I promise."

Hidden Message

See if you can spot the exact moment when Nora was no longer interested in taking pictures.

Pencil thing

The pencil thing always makes Nora laugh.

Untitled from Amanda Ball on Vimeo.

Fickle and mercurial child. I like that she goes from laughing to demanding that I stop, and then back to laughing again.

The little ones

As I was procrastinating writing/reading any number of school things, I was looking through old blog posts of Lillian when she was a baby. I posted a lot of pictures of her doing cute things. Eating. Sleeping. Laughing.

Why don't I do that with my other kids?

I should start.

Nora was sad about something. Lillian stole a toy? Got in trouble for trying to climb the bookshelf? Wanted ice cream for lunch? Who knows? To fix it, I told her we'd take her picture. You can see the glistening tear remnants under her eyes.

Ethan sits now. I know, it snuck up on me too. A few days ago, I realized that, as he is sitting now, I should stop waiting for him to chunk up. Sitting is just weeks away from crawling, which means crawling up the stairs and pulling up and burning calories, and it is just a few months away from walking. This is the stage that Lillian and Nora started thinning out.

While I'm sad that he never chunked out, I'll still keep him.

Because he's so cute, sometimes you just want to squeeze him and laugh maniacally.

Fun, More Fun, and Most Fun

As far as activities we have available for the kids, some are more fun then others. Take for example the sandbox:

Max capacity: probably like 10 kids
Possible injuries: Sand in the face, maybe a sliver
Fun Rating: 6.0

Then we have the bakers rack:

Max Capacity: 1.5 children
Possible Injuries: Kicks to the face, smashed fingers, bonked heads
Fun Rating: 7.2

Finally we have the wagon:

Wagon Ride from Amanda Ball on Vimeo.

Max Capacity: 3 (although we almost had 4)
Possible injuries: minor smushing, faceplant on the driveway, flattened by passing car
Fun Rating: 9.8


Note: No child was injured in the making of this post.

Go upstairs and come back with a different attitude

I woke up a little off today. Usually, I'm really patient with the kids until about 4 or 5 (which is good because Tyler comes home at 5 or 5:30), but Lillian started right up I'm coooooooooooold!! I'm huuuuuuuunnnnngry. I don't waaaaaaant oatmeal. Nora hiiiiiiiiit me. and I couldn't handle it. I was snapping at her left and right and threatening to spank her bottom if she didn't quit whining. Usually the I'm-going-to-spank-your-bottom threat doesn't come out unless things get really bad.

I took a step back and said to myself in my best mom voice, "you need to go upstairs and come back down with a better attitude." So, I did. I shut myself in the bathroom (while Nora very helpfully slid some magazines and small toys under the door, in case I got bored), sat on the edge of the tub, said a little prayer, and thought for a minute.

Sometimes, I feel like I'm stuck in the movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles as the Steve Martin character, and my kids are collectively the John Candy character. In the movie, Steve Martin is trying to get home for Thanksgiving, but things keep happening, some natural (there's a blizzard and his plane is re-routed) and some (most) are caused by the John Candy character: he spills beer on the bed, he gets them into a car accident, he lights the car on fire, etc. This is my life.

I was trying to make dinner yesterday while talking to my friend Myriah, and during our short conversation (I called her because Tyler was running late and I was starting to go crazy), there were like 10 different disasters: Nora and Lillian were fighting over the slinky and then stretched it out, which caused a separate melt down all it's own, Nora had to go to the bathroom 3 or 4 times, then she needed her jacket off RIGHT THEN, then it was WHY, OH WHY DID YOU TAKE MY JACKET OFF, I HATE YOU, then Ethan was crying and Lillian was saying, "MOM THE BABY IS CRYING" over and over again, plus there was the "Mom, mom, mom, I'm hungry. Mom, I don't want to eat that. Mom, I'm huuuuuuungry. Mom, I haaaaaate broccoli soup."

At the end of the movie, Steve Martin and John Candy are good friends and can laugh about it all, which is how I felt last night watching Nora do her little dance to the "L says llllll, L says llllll" song that the alphabet toy plays. It was so cute, my heart about exploded.

But the underlying frustration is still there. I'm frustrated that I can't get anything done. And by anything, I don't mean like... I can't volunteer for Doctors Without Borders or Literacy Volunteers of Tucson, both things I really want to do, but realized a long time ago it wasn't my season of life. I'm talking about the fact that I tried for 3 hours yesterday to mop my floor, something that should only take 45 minutes at the most, and it still didn't get done. Plus, Lillian dumped two pocket's full of sand out right after I had finished sweeping.

I know, I know. It will get easier, but for today, it is hard. And, I need a better attitude.

The Purloined Sandwich

On Wednesday, we had a picnic at the park; I packed peanut butter & honey sandwiches for the girls. Lillian ate everything besides her sandwich, so I took it home and stuck it in the fridge.

Then yesterday, Nora told me she was hungry. I went to the fridge and took out the leftover sandwich. Who could foresee this would happen?

The Purloined Sandwich from Amanda Ball on Vimeo.

How?

"What? How did I get up here? Um, well, I was washing my hands..."

When you sit down

If you sit down to feed the baby, your toddler will start throwing herself bodily against the refrigerator to alert you to the fact that she's hungry.

So, for fear of injury, you'll put the baby down and get the toddler some yogurt. (This interruption will cause your baby to scream.)

After you sit back down to finish feeding the baby, your toddler will eat approximately 10% of the yogurt, and apply the remaining 90% to her body and hair.

As you take the toddler to the sink to rinse her off, the running water will remind you that you've had to go to the bathroom for the last hour.

So, you'll walk into the bathroom only to be greeted with the smell of cleaner, and you'll remember you tried to scrub the toilet earlier that morning but got no farther than putting the cleaner in the bowl.

As you're scrubbing the toilet, your oldest child will materialize and inform you that she has to go to the bathroom RIGHT NOW and needs to use the toilet you are presently cleaning and she is NOT going upstairs because it's an emergency. You leave her to it and try (unsuccessfully) to get your toddler to put her shirt back on.

She'll climb up onto the toilet, but will perch on the very edge even though she's been fully potty trained for over a year and knows not to do this and knows that it will make you very angry when she pees all over the ground.

As you are cleaning up the pee, your baby will start screaming because it's been 30 minutes, and he's hungry. Again. And if you sit down to feed the baby...

Kids that are kids.

I kid you not, I put these books away, went to the bathroom, came back and found this. I'd be much more inclined to clean if there weren't little hands following me around, undoing everything I did literally seconds after I do it.


Lillian came into my room like this and said "FLOUR POWER, ACTIVATE!" Actually, that didn't happen. What actually happened is I heard this flour bag crinkle for 3 or 4 minutes, then Tyler said, "Nora, come here. Put your arms up." At which point, she started screaming. I wandered out of my room to see what was going on and encountered a red-faced Nora with the flour bag on.

Turns out, she hated the flour bag outfit. Lillian, however, was way into it.

Sugar Face

I refilled our kitchen jar of sugar from a 25 lb bag that I keep in the closet under the stairs. Not wanting to battle the closet clutter and wanting to just finish the cookies I was making, I left the 25 lb bag of sugar in the hallway.



Don't worry, Nora found it.



I was in the kitchen and I heard a curious crinkling noise coming from the hall. When I went to investigate, Nora was shoving fistfulls of sugar into her mouth as fast as she possibly could.

A few thoughts about some things

I've been thinking about coffee and/or tea. Being a life-long Mormon, I've only had coffee once in my life: I was in high school and we were sitting around a coffee shop that also sold smoothies and I reached down to grab my smoothie but accidentally got my friend's iced coffee-mocha-frappeé-chino-whatever that was in the same sized cup and took a sip. Eww. And until recently, I've never felt the loss of coffee: all through school, I never had trouble waking up early to study or felt the need to give up my precious precious sleep in order to study late at night (I'll just get a B on this test). So, there was a neighborhood block party a few weeks ago, and Lillian made friends with a little girl about her age. I started chatting with her mom, and she gave me her phone number. I haven't called because I have no idea what to do with her if she comes over to my house. On TV, this situation came up and the first mom said, "Why don't you come over tomorrow around 10 and have a cup of coffee?" Coffee! That social lubricant. It's perfect because it's something to do that doesn't take any planning or energy, and the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee is about as long as I want that first visit to be. In Jane Austen books, women are always coming over, drinking a cup of tea, and then leaving. This, obviously, isn't an option for me, (and not just because I don't live in Austen-era England, but because Mormons don't drink coffee or tea) but I can't come up with a good substitute. Hot chocolate seems sort of juvenile, although I wouldn't mind if someone offered me some. Chocolate milk in a frosty mug would also be delicious, but again, that seems not very grown up, and it's winter.

Any ideas?

I probably won't call for a while because we've had a rash of sickness at our house. Lillian woke me up early Sunday morning and had vomit all over her and in her bed. Gross. She threw up a few more times on Sunday, but then felt fine. Tyler stayed home with the kids from church. I was really looking forward to being able to listen to the speakers without having to play the fishing game and sing the hymns without my hymnal being snatched away to be used as a ramp for the micro-machines. I liked it for about 10 minutes... and then it was actually really boring. I kept looking around for something to do. I tried to entice the little boy behind me to come into my pew and share my strawberry newtons with me, but I guess his mom told him not to take food from strange women. Maybe I'm not that pious.

Then on Monday, I threw up, which is not news: I throw up all the time. But, I wasn't hungry, and that is not normal. With my morning sickness, I am starving and I eat and eat, and throw up, and then my body sends me signals that I must replace the food we just gave up so eat Eat EAT! I couldn't make myself eat hardly anything yesterday and I threw up and threw up some more, so I decided I probably had whatever Lillian had.

I'm so sick of being sick.

I woke up this morning and I felt marginally better, but I cracked while I was trying to get Lillian ready for preschool. Background: Lillian doesn't like bananas. It's not just that she doesn't like to eat them, she can't even been the same room as someone who is eating one, or where someone ate a banana an hour ago. Also, although we empty the dishwasher together almost every day, she's convinced that the dishes in the dishwasher are dirty, and the ones in the cupboard are clean; almost like, it's not the dishwasher that cleans them, it's the act of putting them in the cupboard. So, this morning. It was a fight to get her to go to the bathroom and get dressed (because she wanted to keep watching cartoons), then I was trying to get her to sit up to the table and eat a bowl of Kix. First, she didn't want to walk through the kitchen because Nora was eating a banana. She plugged her nose very dramatically and screamed that it smelled like "b-wana" and indicated that she was NOT going to go in there. After I got her sitting, I went to pull a bowl out of the (clean) dishwasher and she freaked out saying it was dirty. She sprung out of her chair and threw herself bodily against the dishwasher door to prevent me from extricating my hand with the offending bowl. I called my mom in tears and told her I was having a hard time. She was very supportive, even if she did laugh a little at Lillian's antics, and made the point that the fight is worth it because then she'll go to preschool and I can take a breather.

It was a good point, but turned out was incorrect because when we showed up, the woman doing preschool this week said she'd heard I was sick and was sorry, and then politely asked me to keep Lillian home.

So, Lillian is watching Hercules for the 5,000th time.

She's named all the muses except that one second from the left. I can't think of a good name for her. And, does it bother anyone else how they call the things Zeus throws "thunder bolts"? That doesn't even make any sense. They are lightning bolts, Disney. If you're going to botch up the whole of Greek mythology, maybe you could at least get one thing right.