Keeping it simple... and clean...

One of the really, really neat things about raising kids is seeing their evolution. Lots of people love babies. Ok, yes, I love babies. But I really, really love the toddler to young child time. I love when they start interacting. Trying to communicate, developing their own styles of communication, saying funny things. I don’t care for the Terrible Twos and Threes and I have had a lot of that the past two years, but we can just use a partition coefficient here and pretend that doesn’t exist for now. I keep saying it, and I will say it again. It just keeps getting better.

Since Leif was little he always showed a bit of OCD. In fact, I think I have a topic reserved in this blog for Leif’s OCD. The past few months this has spread into a new and interesting area. His bedroom.

If you saw Leif’s bedroom you would assume he is a poor abused child with no toys. While the reality is that the kid has a closet that rivals our Master closet and a toy room. But that’s not all of it… His closet? Skadi spends the vast majority of the time in the closet rifling through stuff, generally destroying the area. And I have about 6 Rubbermaid containers stacked in there as well. I will take storage space wherever I can get it.

Nope, Leif likes things simple. All he really needs are a bookshelf for his books, a place to put his clothes, a place to store his electronics (i.e., charge the DS, keep his headphones handy, etc.), and a few shelves to show off his trophies and his Harry Potter collections and to keep his new locked box. (I bought him a $10 cash box with a key at Target… best thing since sliced bread according to Leif.)

Compare to Skadi’s room that is just unmanageable. Seriously. That child can destroy her room faster than you can blink your eye. Tornado Skadi. And she has toys and loves her toys and wants them all out in her room at all the same times. This is a scary tale for another day. Leif's closet? Well she endured his wrath the other night when she pulled out a box of trucks and didn't put them back.

Back to Leif.

We have “pick up night” every Wednesday evening. The kids’ rooms get picked up along with common areas throughout the house to enable the housecleaner to be able to actually clean.

Leif is a master bedroom cleaner. When he says it is done, you can bet he is not joking. It’s done, it’s perfect and it took him less than 3 minutes. (I have started paying him to help Skadi with her room.) On top of that, Leif has started cleaning his room ahead of time so that he doesn’t have to do it on Wednesday. Because according to him he just has “too much stuff to do on Wednesday with spelling test on Thursday and all”.

Last Tuesday night I finished reading him a book and tossed it on the floor next to the bed. Wow did I unleash the wrath.

Leif: “MOM! I just picked up my room, I don’t want to have to pick it up again tomorrow, would you please put that book back where it belongs?!”

(I could have sworn I have heard this line many times before... only not starting with "mom".)

Leif loves having friends over, but he gets pretty massive anxiety after they leave and his room is a mess. In fact, I have decided that from now on we need to incorporate pick up time into play dates. I did this when I was a kid. I remember storming out of one friend’s house and marching home because we (once again) got into a fight about something. I got home and Jennifer’s mother had called my mom and told her I didn’t help clean up. Dang it. I had to march back up there (tail between legs) to go help her pick up.

Yes, picking up is going to be part of the new play date routine.

I see Leif’s future… a sparsely furnished, stylish (thanks to his interior decorator sister) minimalist loft. Hopefully he can find a woman who will put up with his neat freakiness…

Having Leif jump on me about not putting his book away made me smile.

My mom was somewhere looking down with a big grin on her face.

The Parenting Manual?

Just thought I should let someone know that I didn't get one.

Maybe I wasn't paying attention when they were distributed. Or I didn't get the e-mail saying where to pick it up. Or the mail didn't get me mine. Better yet, UPS didn't get it to me. That one is more believeable.

One of Skadi's teachers, my least favorite actually, comments all the time that I am THE most laid back parent around. She tells me this when my daughter walks in nearly daily in some new "costume".

Maybe I am laid back. I like to think I am smart in that I pick my battles and I don't give a rats ass when other parents look at my daughter and smirk. Because trust me, many things with Skadi are just not worth the battle.

But when the teacher says this to me I wonder if I shouldn't be picking more battles with her? Am I raising a spoiled child? Are we all giving too much in the name of keeping peace in the house?

I admitted to Leif tonight (as well as a few other nights) that no, life hasn't always been fair to him because I have been the one solely to put Skadi to bed for the last year and a half or so. And yes, I understand that I could start to make it up by putting him to bed four nights in a row and then her two nights. Then I remind him that he had both of us to himself for 2 years and 8 months. But this isn't tangible to him. And it's easier to just say honestly, Skadi's screaming constantly is just too much to handle when it follows quickly with vomiting induced by the screaming and laced in there for good measure - the asthmatic wheezing.

It's just easier and Leif I am really sorry that it hasn't been fair.

Except we did start picking this battle a month or so ago and have had amazing success with it. 40% of the time AB is able to put her to sleep and Leif gets me - which is a huge step in the right direction.

I also thought that the binky was going to be a misery to be rid of. AB kept saying we didn't need to push it, so what if we have a 2.5 year old with a binky at night and for naps? Then one day she threw them in the trash and we were done.

So I keep telling myself that there is some evidence to the fact that we are doing the right thing. Making suggestions on what we would like her to do, keep repeating them and eventually let her decide she wants to go this route. Because there are nights when Skadi requests AB and not me. She is coming around.

Is this laziness? Or being too laid back? Or is it understanding my daughter?

I don't know. But I am sure the answer is in the manual.

(Maybe the parenting manual is hiding with the Olympus Camera manual as well that has the warranty card I need in order to send the camera in for warranty work? It wasn't hiding with the scanner cord that I found yesterday.)

It isn't just my daughter that causes me to question my parenting. It's Leif too.

Leif has such an easy going personality (guess he gets that from us). But he does have one downside to his personality. He is a touch obsessive and maybe compulsive too. He gets on something he likes and he attacks it with vigor. It becomes all consuming.

The first evidence of this was Finding Nemo. Then entered Curious George. It was TV first. But he had the personality that accepted with minimal meltdowns that he was not going to get his way. Not Skadi's personality. TV was just ALL he wanted to do. Ever.

I am not that bad of parent... I didn't fall for it.

Next was the computer. I told myself it was better than TV because it engaged him and if he was using the Leapster then it engaged his intellect as well. And it bought us some peace and quiet to focus on the whiney little sister if Leif was on the computer or on his Leapster. We talked about limiting his time on the computer kind of like we did with the TV.

Next was soccer and we rejoiced that he was obsessed about a sport and not technology. Then we backslid when we bought a Wii and have entered into the new plane of Leif's OCD nature.

AB and I have wrestled with how much is enough? When is too much? How often is enough?

AB came home from a birthday party this weekend with the closest thing to an answer we had seen outside of what is probably in the elusive manual:

"Their boys only get to do the Wii on Friday evenings," he told me about other parents we know and admire (they have three boys).

We tossed around the validity of this and set into the week with good intentions.

Then OUR life hit.

And the fact that on weekday mornings AB is gone long before we get out of bed. I have to get ready and it is just easier to let Leif go play Wii while I shower and Skadi watches Dora and Diego on our bed. Because no, I am not going to "force" Leif to watch Dora and Diego with her. Nor am I going to have him take care of her in the playroom because that is just a recipe for him getting whaled on by her and ending up in tears.

I put him downstairs on the Wii while I vowed to get ready fast so that he would only be on there for what, 20-30 minutes? Then I would make him stop and come help me get breakfast reasy. Then that would be it for the day.

Or so I told myself.

But wow, when you get home and are trying to get dinner on the table. And Skadi is done watching her show and is now playing babies on the floor. And so the TV is available. And Leif has done a good job working on his nightly reading work. And I have picture forms to fill out. And a Scholastic book order to finalize. And dinner to start. And mail to go through.

And he looks at me longingly and says, "now that I have finished my reading, and I was good at school today, can I do a Wii game?"

And surrender is easy.

I never thought of myself as laid back. In fact, at work I tend to be the opposite. And I like my life organized. And I am a list maker. I show all the signs of being type A... until it comes to my kids.

Leif update 4 years 10 months

Leif’s 5th birthday is just around the corner. Less than two months and I will have a five year old. It sounds cliché, but I have no idea where the time has gone. No idea whatsoever.

Since Leif was little I have commented on his OCD nature. He gets on one subject/TV show/game/whatever, and he will take it to an extreme. Curious George has gone by the wayside, but soccer has entered the picture. If a child doesn’t play soccer during recess, then Leif isn’t going to be playing with that child. And there is nothing I can do to convince him otherwise. He is fully obsessed with soccer right now, insists on only wearing soccer shirts, must practice soccer daily at home and plays at every recess.

And he is good. He dribbles the soccer ball around the field better than I can.

He starts soccer for 4-5 year olds in two weeks. I am both fearing this and looking forward to it. He will practice once a week and have a game once a week. So twice a week we are going to be hanging out at the soccer field. The aspect of this I am fearing, is Leif’s seriousness about the sport.

When we were signing the kids up for soccer the woman at the YMCA desk indicated that the special training that a parent coach volunteer should have was an ability to keep the kids on the soccer field. Okaaaayyy then. I was suddenly recalibrated.

Oh and did I mention there are no goalies? Right, no goalies. Leif’s favorite position to play. And yes, he knows there are positions in soccer.

I work with a woman who lamented to me when her son was just older than Leif that her son was very annoyed by sports. Annoyed that the other kids didn’t take it as serious as he does. Annoyed that they would hang out and talk on the field instead of focus on winning. I have a feeling I am going to be feeling Mary’s pain soon.

So yeah, Leif likes soccer.

He also likes the computer. We bought a new computer a few months ago and AB happened to find a set of games (free trials) that Leif enjoyed – Polar Golf, Polar Tubing and Polar Bowling. All starring a Polar Bear who announces, “I’m the bear!” at the start. And we have to wait for him to announce this before proceeding to the game. They are fun games that even AB and I enjoy sitting down and playing with Leif. Yes, Leif stomps me at most every game.

Polar Golf has inspired Leif to declare that he wants to learn to play golf for real – he knows what an eagle, birdie, par, bogey and double bogey are and announces which he got on a hole before the narrator announces it. As you may have guessed, unfortunately these games have also morphed into a little bit of an obsession with Leif. However, losing computer privileges is THE most powerful threat ever.

Leif’s interest in movies and TV has taken a back seat to soccer, computer games, his Leapster (which he turns on when he is frequently told he has had enough computer games) and tormenting his sister.

Ok, truth be told, his sister torments him. But he usually starts it, then ends up the one in tears thanks to his sister the brute.

Leif is in a terribly emotional phase right now. He fears being separated from us, hurting himself, dying, loud noises and the unknown. I haven’t figured out if this phase is normal for his age yet. Or if he is just a very emotional little boy. (AB votes for the later.) That’s alright, I will take my mama’s boy. We had to print up a picture of he and I to keep in his locker box at school for the occasions when he gets lonely for me. He cried yesterday in the car as he misses grandma and Bompa. His tears, usually prompt mine, so we have been an interesting pair the past week!

Leif enjoys his works at school and prides himself on his progress. He works at his penmanship, reading and numbers works daily. He can write his name as well as other words when spelled out for him. He can read simple words. He quickly memorizes books and songs – a skill I don’t have, I suck at memorizing. And he is doing basic addition. His fascination with numbers continues and he is constantly asking questions like, “what is 1000 plus 60?” and requests that we quiz him regularly on his addition.

His favorite number is 1021 and he cracks me up when he asks me if I would please count by 71’s (or some other unconventional way to skip count). I am a numbers geek and yes, I can count by 71’s, which thrills Leif to pieces. But it fascinates me that he has chosen prime numbers as the numbers he shows the most interest in.

Leif loves the Mo Willems, Elephant and Piggie early reader books (thanks to Kelley for recommending them). We have read Little House on the Prairie and are looking forward to continuing that series when we get the boxes of books moved out of storage and to the house. For some reason I didn’t pull that set out… kicking myself.

I bought a few other chapter books to read aloud and have been met with mixed success. "Choose Your Own Adventure" books have proven to be a bit hard to comprehend, but the Patrick Carman (from Walla Walla – making him even cooler) books, Elliot’s Park Series are big hits so far. I am looking forward to getting Leif the Land of Elyon series, but I think he may be a touch young for them just yet.

We are at a difficult point with Leif because he is a very intelligent kid (according to his teachers), yet very emotionally immature. By age, just barely, he should go to kindergarten this year. However, it is typical for boys with summer birthdays to not go into kindergarten and to wait a year. We have waffled on this because we also would hate for Leif to eventually be bored in school. However, studies have shown that kids’ ages catch up with them about grade 3. That is the point where the younger kids tend to fall behind and start to struggle. Add into that sports, Leif really enjoys sports and as a smaller, younger child, he may not have the opportunities or positive experiences that he otherwise would. His teachers have encouraged us to not stress about it, he will stay in his same school where he will work at his own pace and we will ignore the lines of “this is kindergarten work” and “this is preschool work”. We will see what happens with the coming year. Leif is not enrolled as a kindergartener, however, he has switched to the group of children who will have the kindergarten teacher as their lead. Confusing and for an analytical person like myself a little disconcerting to not have the quantitative measure. However, I am learning to put aside my need for quantitation in favor of the Montessori approach.

Leif’s 5th birthday will be at the gymnastics gym and he is already making plans. He intends to have a Star Wars birthday (hopefully I will have his bedroom done in Star Wars colors by then also) and he is counting the days.

It should also be a good experience for Skadi… though startling for her to realize that the 4 solid months of it being her birthday everyday will come to an end. I am eager to see how she spins his birthday party to benefit herself!

Leif continues to say funny things and come up with interesting observations. When he is happy - like this afternoon when I told him we would be meeting grandma and Bompa at the cabin this fall - he exclaims, "hooray!" I am not sure where he picked up "hooray", but I like it.

Leif has a list of girls he plans on marrying. It is typically Niranjana and Cate at the top, but occasionally the top tier is toppled by a kindergartener... his heart maybe broken when she moves on later this summer.

Along with the proud moments comes those mortifying moments too... A few weeks ago Leif and I were out and about. We were standing in line and the woman behind us, younger than me and assumably no children, asked Leif how old he was. He told her and said, "but my birthday is coming up". She asked him what he wanted for he birthday?

He didn't even pause before he spit out, "a shotgun".

I could have melted right there. In the house I draw the line at squirt guns. Everyone says, "boys will be boys" and I am starting to believe this. I am even softening a touch at the one thing that Leif really wants for his birthday - a Nerf gun. Sigh. I don't know where my son has ever heard of shotguns, but wow he is attracted to anything that shoots a projectile.

I guess the one positive thing with a Nerf gun is that I will have another item that he can lose privileges with!

Or I can just push for a razor scooter like the kindergartener down the street has. He and Leif have recently (this past weekend) become fast friends after an afternoon of squirt guns and slip and slides.

“Can she bake a cherry pie?”

Earlier this week Leif came home from preschool with a new obsession. Cherry pie.

I don’t believe that he has ever had cherry pie. Like most kids, Leif isn’t a big fan of pie in general – though he will be – it is inherent in our family’s genes that you must like pie.
Four days now we have had questions about cherry pie.

“Can we bake a cherry pie?”

“Mommy, do you like cherry pie?”

“What goes in cherry pie?”

“Can we bake a cherry pie?”

“Can I take a cherry pie to school?”

“Who all likes cherry pie, raise your hands!”

Repeat the above over and over and you have the jist of it.

I love making pies (now that I have mastered the crust) and so my answer to “can we make a cherry pie” is invariably yes. Of course I need to find the time, and I really wish this question was coming in another 2 months whereby we could go the really yummy route with fresh cherries since I am not a fan of jelly fruity fillings that you buy at the grocery store. But to indulge my son a little, we will get at least frozen cherries or something.

I asked him how he would make cherry pie and he said, “Weeeelllll [how he always starts a sentence when he is thinking] I would mix ice cream and cherries, and more ice cream…”

Hmmm…

I am not sure he really KNOWS what cherry pie IS!

I talked to his teacher on Friday who found this to be just the funniest obsession she has heard about. They are learning about Australia, not cherry pie in school and she has no idea where he got that from.

I checked with his teacher and she agreed that sure, if Leif would like to bring cherry pies in for snack day one day, she is fine with that. We will probably throw in a quart of ice cream too.

I live Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

It is a given that when we get into the car, Leif asks for Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. This has gone on for a few weeks now since he knows every.single.word for it. Except of course for the names of the reindeer. His version goes something likes this:

"You know Dancer and Dancer and Dancer and Vixen, Comet and Stupid and Donner and Blitzen". And if you sing it, you better hit Donner, because 9 times out of 10 - even if you did get Donner, he's going to tell you that you didn't.

John Denver sings Rudolph on the Rocky Mountain Christmas cd in my car. So instead of getting to listen to "Aspenglow" or "Christmas for Cowboys", it is Rudolph... over and over again. (Leif did tell me he also liked "Please Daddy Don't Get Drunk This Christmas" the other day, but I didn't tell AB this.)

I know. I could say no. And ensue the whining. But truth be told it is easier to hit the back button repeatedly and endure.

Leif seems to not have a problem listening to a song over and over and over and over again. He might get this from me. And like it drives Skadi up the wall and she starts whining when she has had enough Rudolph, AB tends to start whining when I play songs over and over and over and over again.

There's only one other person I know who has a tolerance for this... and I discovered it during The Vandals stage of my teenage years (wow they look old now)... when we successfully drove her boyfriend literally up the wall in a little blue VW Rabbit.

Little boy obsessed

After getting the mail most evenings Leif is eager to pilfer the toy catalogs. He has a need to find something on every single page that he wants. He brings the catalog to me, points the item out, explains the virtues of this toy and then returns to browse the next page. All the while I nod my head, tell him to ask Santa and wonder in my head if he would actually play with it. For the most part, Leif isn't a big "toy" kid.

The other night Leif found the Lego catalog in the stack of mail and after a few minutes came back to me declaring, "I want everything in this catalog".

I reminded thim that was NOT happening, but he should look through it and figure out what he would like since unbeknownst to him, Legos are on the list from Mommy and Daddy this year.

He came back mesmerized by the Coast Guard Platform.

I agreed with him that was awfully neat.

Leif then spent much of Tuesday evening looking at that page in the Lego catalog. All through "dessert" (which was yogurt) he talked up the virtues of this set.

"And it has a helicopter, and a man, and you can lift your mans out of the water, and I think you can lift your boats out too!" The talk went on and on.

AB eyed it and agreed we had probably found the Lego set for Christmas and on Wednesday morning I found it online (available ONLY at the Lego store - no deals to be had on this baby thanks to its "Limited Availability") and ordered it.

I also tossed in the 4WD and jetski for good measure since Leif has loved jetskis the two times he has had occasion to ride them with AB.

Last night he confirmed my notion that this was a good choice when he spent the second night at dessert (once again yogurt) oogling over the same page in the catalog. He finished and with catalog in hand said, "I am going to go lay in bed and look at this for awhile". I steered him to the bathroom for tooth brushing.

While brushing his teeth he asked me how he could be sure Santa brought him that set? I reminded him all he could do was ask, there are no guarantees.

AB put him to bed and instead of selecting books to read, Leif brought the catalog to bed to "read".

I can't wait till Christmas morning and he opens this. I remember being about this age (just barely) and opening up my Lincoln Logs on Christmas morning. I was so excited and immediately sat down to build cabins. My mom recently sent my Lincoln Logs (and all the extra goodies that had migrated into the box 30 years ago - talk about a trip down memory lane). I still remember that Christmas morning like it was yesterday.

What gifts stand out in your mind?

For my mom

NM: "Leif put your glasses on."

Leif: "No mommy, my glasses have a problem."

NM: "What kind of problem?"

Leif: "They weren't washed today."

Annoying things my kids do

Leif:

The fruit snacks. Oh my goodness the fruit snacks.

"Who is this, eh?"

"Mommy who is this one?"

I always mix up the fruit snacks and buy different ones. We have Batman, Curious George and Scooby Doo right now. But the incessant requests before every single bite asking who is on one fruit snack is making me nuts.

I have tried all tactics.

Ignore = The requests get louder and whinier.

Reasoning = "Leif you have had three blue ones and they were all Batman, you know that the blue one is Batman, ok?" Doesn't work

Return question = "Well who do YOU think that might be?" Doesn't work.

Annoyance = "Leif, you ask me every single time what that is, you are a smart boy, you figure it out." Crying.

I finally got smart today... no fruit snacks in the car anymore.

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Skadi:

The pinching. Stop with the pinching already!!

Nobody likes it!

If she walks up and pinches me one more time...

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I had this huge list of annoying things and then I went in to tuck them in this evening and half the list... ok 3/4 of the list evaporated. Only the really annoying things were left.

That gene that skipped a generation...

You may wonder what kind of weird punishment I dole out. Or you may just think my kid is being a spaz...

You would be wrong.

He is doing something he loves.

Remember that gene? The one that skipped a generation?

The clean gene?

He is vacuuming my car.

And enjoying it.

My car hasn't been this clean in... well... I don't remember when. It has been a long, long time.

He is freakishly thorough too... look at him getting the little bit of stuff all the way in the back there... and he lifted the floor mats up, and vacuumed the dashboard. (Oops, I didn't really just admit my dashboard needed vacuuming did I?)

Professional detail job? Or violation of child labor laws?

You decide.