Category: stories

The Room Sharing Experiment

We are 3 weeks into the great room sharing experiment. I guess it’s not quite an experiment because we have no plan B if it doesn’t work out. But so far the results have been pretty good. No major fights or territorial conflicts, which I was expecting. Interestingly, there have been other changes that I didn’t expect.

Before moving in together, Thing 1 and Thing 2 had different personalities, routines, and interests. Thing 1 liked to recite sports statistics, go to sleep early with the lights off, and he was generally serious and reserved. Thing 2 liked imagination play, regularly having conversations with his dragons and toys for a good hour in his bed before finally falling asleep with the lights on.

From what I’ve seen in just a few weeks each is becoming more like the other. It’s like instead of a Thing 1 and Thing 2, we now have two Thing One-And-A-Half’s. Some of this merging into Thing 1.5 has been a good influence. Thing 2 is now more interested in reading, sports (good for me), and other interests and abilities like his big brother. And Thing 1 has become more imaginative and shows a sillier side. Surprisingly, they have become even more inseparable. I honestly don’t know how they don’t get tired of each other.

But, we also have a spreading of the not so good habits. They now both stay up late and play in their room to the point where we need to go up at least 3 times a night to tell them to quiet down and go to sleep. What used to be a very organized and orderly bedroom under just the management of Thing 1, has evolved into the just put everything on the floor system favored by Thing 2.

All in all, it’s been a net positive outcome. Which I have to say was an unexpected, very pleasant surprise.

Careful What You Wish For

I encourage my kids to ask questions. I make a point to stop what I’m doing to give them explanations they can understand.

“Where does snow come from”, “How do airplanes fly?”, “How does Santa go to every house in one night”, “How many points do you get for a touchdown”.

These are very important questions that I’m happy to answer. I enjoy the challenge of coming up with an answer they can understand.

Then there are questions you don’t want to hear.

We were driving home from school one day. All 3 Things were in their seats, watching the TV, quiet and tired from their day. Thing 2 broke the silence, out of the blue, and asked a question.

“What’s a pussy?”

Umm. Gulp. My mind was racing for an answer. I stalled. “What did you say?”

As innocent as can be, “Pussy. What is a pussy?”

Then, I realized what they were watching on the TV. Sylvester and Tweety Bird. Sylvester is a cat. A PUSSYcat.

Whew. Dodged that one.

Is That Poop In The Pool

There are not a lot of options for keeping three active boys occupied in the winter when it’s 14 degrees with the wind chill. So I made the difficult choice to take all three on my own to the rec center pool.

It is certainly no small undertaking to get all of them changed in the locker room, get a swim diaper on Thing 3, chase after them in the pool, then dried off and dressed again. But when the weather is this cold, it’s necessary. We got changed, stuffed all our stuff into a locker, and headed to the pool.

After just 20 minutes of fun in the pool, the lifeguard whistles blew. Adult swim? Really? Then the word quickly spread. There was poop in the pool at the bottom of the slides near where we were playing. Pool closed for at least 45 minutes. Game over.

Thing 3 was a prime suspect. Come to think of it, he hadn’t had his usual dirty diaper that morning. I checked his swim diaper and it appeared clean. But like JFK’s shooting, we can never be sure.

Who Are The Bad Parents

Preschools everywhere have an annual Halloween parade. Kids dress up and parents, family, and friends watch as the kids parade around the parking lot.

Our preschool has infants through kindergarten, with two or three classrooms for each age group. There were easily 150 kids in the Halloween parade.

As we watched the kids walk by, every single one was wearing a costume. Firemen, princesses, Spiderman, witches and all the usual suspects.

Except for one kid. This poor kid was in the parade in street clothes. Jeans and a red shirt. What terrible parents forgot their kid’s costume?

Any guesses who this kid was? Yes, it was Thing 3. For the second year in a row.

In our defense, we did bring the costume. A Yoda robe, hat, and ears. He just refused to wear it. Perhaps “refused” is the wrong word. More like the king of all tantrums despite the teachers’ best efforts. We weren’t surprised.

Here is Thing 3 as Yoda. Minus the Yoda.

Taking The Long Way Home

A guy I know, who is in “the business”, and performs as a stand-up comedian, once told me that when a joke takes a long time to get to the punchline, when it starts as a seemingly unrelated story but at the end reveals the connection, it’s referred to as “taking the long way home”. Well, in this post, I will be taking the long way home.

You may recall the Seinfeld episode where Newman explains why postal workers sometimes go crazy. He talks about how the his job is never finished, there is always more mail to deliver. And a new batch comes each day. The mail never stops!

Here is the scene in case you never saw it, or need a refresher.

I’ll bet you are wondering where I’m going with this one. Stay with me.

I’ve started to feel like Newman. For me, it isn’t mail, but laundry. Now that they are getting bigger, and their clothes are bigger I guess, the Things are making more and more dirty laundry. We always have more to do.

I think we’ve done at least one load of laundry every day for the last two weeks. And it only gets worse as the weather gets colder. Long sleeve shirts and jeans instead of shorts and t-shirts. And the socks! How is it that we can do an entire basket of laundry and not one sock matches?! And we’re never, ever done. As soon as one basket is washed, dried, folded and put away, there is another dirty load ready to go. When laundry never stops!!!!

And that, my friends, is what we in the business call taking the long way home.

Ever Wonder?

Two year olds are full of wonder. Ever curious, exploring, and most of all, touching. Thing 3 has a special ability, like most two year olds, whereby he will touch exactly those objects you least want him to.

What sort of objects does he like to touch? These days it’s animal poop. Yes, he has a possible future as a Pet Butler. Got Poop? We Scoop.

Last week at Cox Farms we were feeding the goats. Thing 3, who also loves to pick up rocks and mulch, was picking up goat poop to throw it.

Again, today, walking to feed the ducks. The path is loaded with goose droppings. If he isn’t stepping in it, then he is picking it up and throwing it.

Curious Trouble

Toddlers are troublemakers curious by nature.?? They touch, push, pull, prod, and climb anything and everything in their path.? It’s how they learn about their world.

It’s also how trouble happens.? I’ve posted before about Thing 3’s curiosity, which even for a toddler, is extraordinarily high.? For a while he was very curious about the water in the toilets and only wanted to put his hands in it.

Having just moved to the two year olds room at daycare, his new teachers are just learning of the new level of curiosity that Thing 3 brings.? And these are teachers who spend all day with two year olds so I would think they’ve seen it all before.

One of Thing 3’s passions is running.? Fast.? Into the unknown.? Because he’s curious, I guess.? We try to give him an outlet for his running.? The mall is a great place for this.? Point him in a direction, put him down and he’s OFF.? Like a wind up race car.? Into the Banana Republic and behind a rack of clothes.? Oh yeah, once he finds a new place, he likes to hide from me.? I”ve lost him more than once in the aisles at Target or Michaels because he ran off to hide.

On day one of being in his new classroom, the teacher told me? Wow, he is fast.? I opened up the door to the class and he was halfway down the hall before I could get out the door.? Yeah, he’s like a puppy that can’t be let off the leash even indoors.

Then today I get a strange instant message from the teacher.? She wanted to know if Thing 3 has ever pulled or tried to pull a fire alarm.? Apparently he’s been working for days to stack objects in the classroom so he can climb them and pull the alarm.

Fortunately, it’s a first.? But given his curiosity level it’s very believable.? I just hope this is a phase and not an indicator of trouble to come.

Two Year Terror

You hear a lot about the terrible two’s. We are no doubt smack in the middle of this stage with Thing 3. But that is not what I’m writing about today.

Thing 3 is also a two year old terror. Who does he terrorize? His older brothers. Usually you hear about the older ones picking on the youngest. Not here.

Part of the terror comes from the normal toddler behavior of getting into his brothers stuff. They know a game of checkers, or playing a computer game is subject to instant termination when Thing 3 is around.

Then there is the physical intimidation. Yes, by a two year old. To him, about the funniest thing you can do is bop someone on the head and say “ow”. All fun and games with a pillow or stuffed animal. Not quite so funny when it’s a flashlight, fork, or other hard object.

He also likes to run full steam and dive on you. It’s fun when you see him coming. It hurts when you don’t. Either way he comes up laughing.

On so many occasions when the three of them are horsing around, it’s usually one of the older ones who come up crying at the hands of Thing 3.

They both flinch when Thing 3 makes a move in their direction. As a result, Thing 1 and Thing 2 have the reflexes and awareness of a secret service agent.

One night, Thing 2 woke up crying during the night. He was having a nightmare. I walked him back to his bed and asked what scared him. He said he dreamed that Thing 3 was chasing him with his flashlight.