Meet the family
The Man; Big Guy: My husband
Big Brother: My four, going on five-year-old son
Tenderheart: My three-year-old
The Boss; Bossy; Baby: Our one-year-old puppetmaster
Minutia alert/Braggy Mommy
Written Monday Oct 20th, 2008
I started the day today too tired due to a long night of sick Bossy-baby and cavity-riddled, suffering Tenderheart. So, when my friend called about going to the park after The Man had just got down for a nap I had to decline.
I did offer for them to come play in the backyard and they stayed for lunch… a sacrifice when food is scarce but she bought our last lunch. Tenderheart is constantly catching me off guard right now with how bright he is and the things he’s catching on to. He brought me a bouquet of flowers today made with enormous tinker toy wheels on green sticks. Then he gave me the green ring from the stackable set to bind them into a bouquet. What an angel!
The Boss cried a lot and was tired all day because he is suffering from a pretty severe allergic reaction. He was bad yesterday but on the getting better side but the nursery ladies took care of that. I told them Jack was allergic to wheat and dairy and left him with raisins for snack. He can’t have much else in there because there is a kid with a peanut allergy so they can’t have granola bars or anything “safe” for the Boss in the room. Only goldfish and animal crackers. I picked him up from nursery (only about a half-hour later since it was his first day and he’s not official for a few weeks) and they explained that he’d just loved the goldfish and animal crackers. Yeah, really.
He was a serious snotty disaster today and is working on an ear infection on one side so far. Grrr…
Big Brother is in a whiny phase so I keep losing my temper with him. Shame on me. Lack of sleep doesn’t help. But he is really such a thoughtful, considerate boy. I’m so proud of him. Aaaaaand… he counted to one-hundred and twenty today! (with a tiny nudge at 100 and 111) The kindersteps class goal is 100 for the year! It is a requirement to move to first grade and this kid is doing kindergarten anyway. He’s reading like crazy and now he’s “caught up” in the numbers department. That kid is a firecracker!
McDonaldland mauling
Three days of healing and this is what’s left. Okay, so they’re not exactly life threatening injuries and they look much better since the puffiness went down but I still get angry every time I see them. The other side of his face looks about the same.
The moral of the not-yet-told-story: Never go to McDonald’s when the surrounding schools are having half day. I wouldn’t have been there had a desperate friend not asked me to meet her. Ironically, she never showed up.
The playplace was crawling with seven, eight and nine year old boys. Where were the girls? Probably not driving their mothers crazy enough to warrant a trip to the mommy-haven.
I stood in line to get food long enough to lose my baby in the crowd and watch three people step in front of me in line and then I’d had it. I followed my wiley ones to the rear of the restaurant- the only part of any interest to them… the playland.
Sure enough, there was no seating, so I hovered over the table of a mom who was rounding up her troops until they left. I got lucky. Other moms were forced to sit in the adult section. Hmmm… maybe I need to review my logic on that one.
Anyway, the kids had barely ascended the plastic tunnel contraption before word of trouble floated down to me on the breath of school-aged boys. Boys who, incidentally, called me by name (darn my boy #1) and then informed me that #2 was causing trouble. He was apparently attempting to start a fight with these boys so they’d come to report him. Not likely.
This is my socially allergic, introverted three-year-old we’re talking about. I informed the kids that there was nothing I could do but I appreciated their concern. I did, however, try several times to call the kid down, unsuccessfully.
Until he did come down. Another one of the boys approached me, “your son hit me.” And then he emerged from the tunnel slide, bleeding, shaken and looking like he’d been through the war. I was so upset that I gathered my three and made for home just as fast as I could move. I’m still mad at myself for not saying something to their mother or taking any kind of action at all but I was so upset I couldn’t think. The chaos itself was more than my anxious psyche could handle.
Anyway… moral of the story and all that. What would you have done?
Space for my little cadets
The walls in my boys’ room have been bare for years. On the upside, they match most of the walls in the rest of the house. On the downside, it’s pretty depressing in there. My rationale has been that they only go in to sleep in there and then their eyes are closed. Not to mention that I can’t paint since we are renting.
But lately I’ve been bitten by the decorating bug (this can be painful, especially with zero budget to feed the need) and have resolved to make our dwelling more homey.
My oldest is a whiz with a crayon, so, in a stroke of inspiration, I commissioned some artwork; aliens, spaceships, planets… ya know, space stuff. This did require some explaining since, at four-years-of age, my son’s understanding of universe is somewhat lacking.
I had the hubby pull out a huge old star map we’ve been storing in the garage and we plastered it across one wall. I covered another wall with big brother’s drawings and I’m sensing the beginnings of something beautiful.
The next phase involves styrofoam balls, string and ceiling tacks… I’ll keep you posted when I come up with the cash.
This sucks… or doesn’t suck. Whatever.
We’re not usually this poor but we’ve officially hit a wall with the business. It’s just not happening for us right now so the husband is looking for work. In an unfortunate coincidence, I also lost my vacuum. Mr. Fixit thought he could fix it (it starts and promptly dies.) After some tweekage, he did squeeze a few extra minutes of suckage out of it but alas… still no vacuum cleaner.
Three are three small children living in this house. Three ferocious and haphazard eaters who fling food all directions with every bite and have been known to stash smashed up food in any corner of the house they see fit. I need a vacuum cleaner. Did I mention that our kitchen table sits on carpet? Yes, we are asking for trouble. Maybe I should get a dog.
Making it work
I came across a discussion on a mothering message board revolving around the practice of gifting outgrown baby items to those less fortunate. One mother expressed her wonder at the thought of being unable to afford a Boppy pillow. After all, she has three. Other moms chimed in with similar sentiments and I realized, I really am that poor.
A Boppy was on my list of never-gonna-happens when I was expecting my first. I had an armful of borrowed gowns, a hand-me-down crib next to my bed, and a garage-sale car-seat, stroller combo with which to welcome my baby into the world. We’re just starting out, I comforted myself. That kid is now four, has two younger brothers, and we’re exactly where we started.
I work, regularly, as a freelance writer. My husband owns a business, yet to make any money and crashing steadily in the current economy. He has put in an application for employment at a thoroughly menial place of business and I am praying that he lands the job.
I didn’t expect this. I come from a well educated family. So does my husband. We left affluent neighborhoods to go off to school. I didn’t finish… there were far more interesting things going on in my life. And my husband, a fantastic student, left the major university at which he studied to “find himself.” This landed him in a technical school and then in a field which he took to poorly.
We planned to finish school when we got married but quickly realized that there was far too much debt to pay off and thought. We’d go back “later.” Well, it’s later and we’re 30-ish years old, in massive debt and struggling to pay the rent. Yet somehow we manage. Somehow our kids are happy and somehow the bills usually get paid.
Diary of a working-class mom 