But...

I have to remember all the cute, sweet things my tantruming duo do.

Ally is very funny.  She has abandoned the alias Sasha, and even Cesa (See-sah), which she had even gotten Luke to call her much of the time, and she has moved on to "Amy."  She's quite adamant about this one.  If we say something referring to Ally, she will correct us.  "Ally, do you want water?"  "No, Amy want water."

The nice thing about "Amy," is that she's more cooperative that Ally ever was.  We spent a half hour trying to get Ally to bed the other night until finally I said, "Amy, go to bed" and she went right up to bed.  It was like a little multiple personality miracle.

Even Anna noticed how different Amy is.  She said, "Well, I don't really like the name Amy, but Amy sure is nicer than Ally!"

And, Ally (aka Amy) likes to tell secrets.  She'll call you over, and in a very breathy, damp whisper, directly into your ear, she'll breathe, "Piggy, Bear, and Baba!"  Then Dave and I nod at this deep wisdom, and thank her for letting us in on it.

Luke loves to make maps.  He draws lines on a piece of paper and then rolls it up and brings it with him in the car.  Then he'll check this map and tell you, "Go left up here.  Take the next right."

Luke wakes up every morning as a puppy.  He'll bark from his bed and declare, "Puppy wake!  It's morning!"  Then when I get him, he'll snuggle his cheek against me and say, "Puppy so love his mommy."

Luke still loves that German-English dictionary.  Luckily, Anna and Ally are over it, so there's less fighting about it.  But, he likes to take this "checking" book with him when we go places, and it apparently also contains directions.  When Dave was taking Kate skiing the other day, he went up to Dave, slipped the book into his coat pocket, and told him that was so he didn't get lost.

So, they wear me out, but they also fill me up!

Tantrums times two

I think Luke wants his share of fame.  I recently wrote an article about Ally's tantrums for our neighborhood magazine.  Since then Luke has stepped up his game.

Despite a mouth full of frosting, he still has a tortured soul.

The night before last I sent Luke to bed without any books.  I called him to come get his pajamas on, and he said, "No, Ally first.  It's a girl day."  

I told him I'd already gotten Ally's pajamas on, that it was his turn.  "No, I don't want to," he replied.  

"Come here, now," I said, very firmly.

"Uhhhhhgh," he exclaimed, like a three-year-old Napoleon Dynamite, and then asked me,"Why do you always have to 'noy me?"

In case you missed that, he asked me why I always have to annoy him.

I told them if he was saying mean things like that, he was definitely too tired for books, and I put him straight to bed.  

By that logic, he's been super-tired all the time lately.  He (and Ally) both scream how mean Dave or I are if they don't get their way.  And, they've also been known declare that we're "not their friends anymore."  

And, when they want things, and I tell them no, they will use my own strategies on me.  If they ask for chips, and I tell them no, they can have a banana, they will say to me, "No, that's not a choice!"

It's been tough, the last couple months with this double dose of three-year-old.

I actually decided I needed to read the article I wrote for the paper, just to keep myself from losing my mind.  Here it is:

Why do I care?

I have used the Love and Logic parenting philosophy for over seven years, since my oldest daughter was a baby.  I loved it so much I even became a facilitator a couple years ago.  

I have always said that the Love and Logic approach works with just about every child, and I do believe that.  The thing is it doesn’t work as quickly with with every child and it’s also a relative thing.  Even if Love and Logic is working really well with a child who would normally be extremely difficult, that child may still be somewhat difficult.

Kate responded immediately to all the techniques I used with her.  She was about two and a half the first time she refused to help clean up, and I had to “clean up” her toys for her by putting them in a closet for a couple days.  The next time I said, “Are you going to clean up or should I?” she jumped to clean up.  And, we never had a problem again.  Anna, on the other hand, still needs me to “clean up” every couple months to remind her.  Luke is closer to Kate, but Ally… raising Ally has been a whole other ball game.

Our latest challenge with Ally is her tantrums.  Last Thursday was a particularly tough day.  In the checkout line at Michael’s, Ally saw some candy she wanted.  I told her we weren’t going to buy the candy but she could have a sucker for dessert after lunch.  Despite this concession, she threw herself on the floor in a tantrum.  Whatever you are picturing in your head right now is not doing Ally’s tantrum justice.  This was a full out, plop flat on her back, arms flailing, making-a-snow-angel style tantrum complete with moaning and screaming, right in the middle of the checkout line.  It’s always been my approach to ignore these outbursts.  I’m obviously not going to give in, and nothing good has ever come of trying to reason with a child having a tantrum.  With each of my other children, this approach worked.  I only remember Kate ever having one public tantrum.  Anna had a few, over the course of a couple weeks, but once she saw they didn’t work, she, too, quit.

So, there I was in Michael’s with Ally going strong.  My face flushed as I tried my best to ignore the fact that everyone in the entire front of the store seemed aware of our situation.  Two older women behind me were literally giving each other a play-by-play of Ally’s tantrum, so I turned around and gave them a small smile.  As I swiped my credit card, Ally, to my relief, Ally had tuned her volume down to a low moan, but she was still sprawled out on the ground.   

I took my bag, and told Ally, “It’s time to go to the car.”  She didn’t move except for to furrow her angry little brow just slightly more.  I pretended Luke and I were leaving.  I saw her eyes following us, so I took Luke’s hand and began to pull him out of her sight.  He protested, “We can’t leave without Ally,” so once we were out of sight, I whispered that we’d just wait around the corner and she’d come.  She didn’t budge.  I peeked up around a display of coloring books every 10 seconds or so, just so the women who were very entertained by all this knew I was still there.  Eventually, I decided we couldn't disrupt Michael’s anymore, so I scooped Ally up to take her to the car.  The older women started laughing and one said to the other, “Well, the little girl won that one!”

After this we still had to head to Walgreens to buy some medicine.  I’d told Luke and Ally earlier that they could have some nuts for snack when we went to Walgreens.  We went to the shelf, and I asked if they wanted, “Mixed nuts, almonds, or peanuts.” Luke picked out some peanuts.  Ally said she wanted chocolate.  I told her that wasn’t a choice.  Since she insisted on chocolate, we left without anything for Ally and we went to get the rest of what we needed.  On the way to the checkout, we saw a display that had a few choices of nut snack packs.  I asked Ally if she wanted the mixed nuts or peanuts.  She saw some cookies above and said she wanted them instead.  Of course, Luke did too.  I said, “Your choices are mixed nuts or peanuts.”  Ally began to cry.  I said, “Do you want nuts or nothing?”  She said cookies, so we began to check out.  Ally crumbled to a seated position and began crying about cookies.  I went through my transaction, trying to appear like I was ignoring her and like I wasn’t worried about what the checkout lady was thinking of me ignoring her.  I grabbed my bag and Luke’s hand and turned around to see that Ally had decided to show her displeasure by stripping down in the Walgreens checkout.  And she was quick.  Her coat, mittens, hat, shoes, and socks all lay in a heap beside her and she was working her way out of her shirt.

Following the philosophy of natural consequences, I took her stripped off clothing and threw it in the shopping bag, then scooped her up and headed outside saying, “Oh, Ally, I hope you don’t get too cold without your coat on.”

I have to remember it’s long term, this whole “raising kids” adventure.  I’ve seen first hand the way kids turn out when they are allowed to always have their way.  I know that what I’m doing is the right way, but it’s not always easy.  It’s the hardest out in public when I feel like I’m on display.  Part of it is that I feel that as the family of a pediatrician, these things shouldn’t happen to us, and partially I feel that since I teach Love and Logic my children should all be well behaved.  

Today, at the grocery store, right after a couple workers had come over to admire Ally’s hair, she tried to grab an apple to eat it.  I told her she could have it right after we paid for it and washed it.  So,  Ally threw herself flat on her back in the produce aisle.  “Let’s finish up quick so you can have it,” I said to her, taking Luke’s hand to keep walking.  She didn’t budge.  

I saw the two workers come back over and watch the show.  Another one walked by and commented, “Mm mm mm, she is not happy.”

And I was terribly embarrassed.

And I suddenly thought, Why do I care?  First of all, I won’t see most of these people again in my life.  And for those that I do, why do I care so much what they think?  And, why do I automatically assume they’re thinking the worse?  Many of them might be thinking, That poor mom.  Another bunch might be thinking Good for her, for standing her ground.  And, most of them probably don’t even care; they have their own things to deal with.  And if they are thinking badly of me, Why.  Do.  I.  Care?  

The most important thing is that my kids are being raised right.

One of my favorite things I ever heard from a speaker at a Love and Logic conference was this.   “Every good fit that our kids throw when they are small is one less fit they’ll have when they’re teens, when the stakes are so much higher.”  I like to think of it that every child is born with a certain number of temper tantrums.  We’ve all seen adults who become quite dramatic when things don’t get their way, or teen agers who rebel when they don’t get their way.  I’m hoping Ally, though she may have more tantrums in her, gets them all out now.  It’s always better that they learn the lessons of life when they’re younger.  It’s better for them, that is, not always for us.  But, I guess that’s all part of the job of parenting.  

Teeth and stuffing

At the girls' dentist appointment last week, we learned that poor Anna, like her father and like Kate, doesn't have good luck with teeth falling out on a proper schedule.  She had permanent teeth starting to come in and her baby teeth weren't even close to coming out.  In order to make room for the new teeth, she had to have four baby teeth pulled on Friday.

I quickly sewed her a tooth pillow that afternoon but couldn't find stuffing to fill it.  I thought this was a little ironic since I pick up stuffing up off the floor ever single day.  When Ally was a baby, she would rub the bottom of her Baba to comfort herself.  Eventually that rubbed spot broke open, and she began to pull stuffing out of it.  I tried to patch the hole, but she cried for hours until I finally ripped off the patch.  Since then, for over a year now, she has pulled stuffing out of Baba every night and every nap time.

Since the stuffing comes from his bottom, she called it "Baba poopy," which got shortened to "poopy."

This name has caused a few incidents, like times when Ally will comment she has poopy in her hair, and I'd quickly rush to explain it's simply stuffing that comes from a hole in the bottom of a stuffed bear.  

She usually replaces much of the stuffing she takes out, but the rest gets scattered throughout the house.  It might qualify as a wonder of the world how much stuffing is in that stuffed bear, enough to spread stuffing piles throughout the house for the past 18 months.  When we had to replace Baba with Bear, in order for her to find the same comfort from Bear, I tore a hole in his bottom.  And, so, even though Baba is finally reaching a point where little more stuffing can come out, we have a whole new vessel of stuffing to spread throughout the house.

Despite all this stuffing, I couldn't find enough stuffing to stuff the tooth pillow in time for the tooth fairy's arrival.  I finally got an old pillow and opened it up.  I sat at the table as the family had dessert, and removed stuffing from the pillow and put it in Anna's tooth pillow.

When Ally saw me take stuffing out of the old pillow, her eyes popped wide open, and she exclaimed, "Pillow poopy!?" and then she slipped right off her chair and fell to the ground.

The big girls and I couldn't stop laughing.  I shocked her so badly, she fell off her chair!  Maybe someday I will literally "knock someone's socks off."

The auction

Kate had used a headband making kit she'd gotten for Christmas to make a bunch of headbands. She decided she would auction them off to the family.

"It's not money," she'd explained, "just numbers."

When auctioning a headband that Anna really liked, the bidding went as follows:

Kate:  Can I get ten.
Me:  Ten.
Dave:  Eleven.
Kate:  Do I hear twelve?
Anna (finally paying attention):  Ten hundred fifty hundred!

Kate (not missing a beat): Do I hear ten hundred sixty hundred?

Bear

The last time Baba went missing and his look-alike (or what would be a look alike, if Baba wasn't so trashed) stepped in, Ally couldn't quite let the other one go even when Baba came home.  

She now sleeps with Baba, Bear (as she named the would-be look-alike), and Piggy.

Bear, what Baba used to look like (left) and Baba (right)

Yesterday, Dave and the girls were watching the Packers playing the Bears.

Anna was yelling, "Boo, Bears! Boo, Bears!"

All of the sudden, Ally said, "Hey!  Is you talking about my friend!?"

Thank you, Santa!

Faces filled with joy!

All Anna asked for from Santa was a "big, big, big, big heart" that she could lie on.

When Finley smelled her gift (bully sticks), she went to open it in private.

Ally got her very own Ameri-girl! (Or at least the Michael's $12 version.)

Luke got Jake and the Neverland Pirate's Bucky!

American Girl Feel Better kit and a gift certificate to Amazon!

And my two very favorite pictures!  Just look at her face!

Fox Point governance

Driving in the car, Kate asked, "Does Fox Point have a mayor?"

"No," I said, thinking it over, "I don't think so."

"So, just Milwaukee has a mayor?" Kate asked.

Before I could respond, Anna piped in with a question of her own, "Does Fox Point have a princess?"

"No, Anna," Kate answered.

"Well, Kate," Anna said, determined, "If it doesn't have a mayor, then it must have a princess."

Recycled snowman

A comment on Anna's report card read: Please remind Anna to do her homework.  

Dave and I knew this was really a gentle reprimand for us.

It turns out, although Anna is doing we homework, she's not turning it in.

This has stressed me.  Although I'm embarrassed to admit it, it's because I worry about how it makes me look as a mom.  

So, when a note came home asking for craft odds and ends for a "recycled snowman" project, I saw my chance to prove myself.  I went overboard gathering all the small craft odds and ends I could find into a ziplock bag.  I thought of Anna's teacher seeing how much craft stuff I have and knowing my kids aren't as neglected as they must seem.  I then gathered a whole bunch of cloth scraps in a gallon size bag, picturing Anna's teacher handing the Melbye scraps to all the children, and her thinking how helpful I was.  (Yes, I know I can be delusional.) I carefully labeled both bags, "Anna, Recycled Snowman."  Then I emphasized to Anna how she needed to get these to her teacher right away.

That would show I was a well organized, conscientious mom.

I felt pretty good about it until Kate came home last night and said, "Mom, somehow you gave all my recycled snowman stuff to Anna's teacher."

Practical Jokester

Kate, Anna, and I were driving home from seeing First Stage's "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" yesterday when Kate mentioned something about how it took her longer to get ready to go after school on Friday because her boots were tied together with a scarf.

Anna said, "Well, we had to be in the hall during art and I saw your stuff there, so I tied your boots together with your scarf."

Kate said, "Anna, I don't think that's funny."

"Well," Anna explained, "then you better hope I don't have art out there again."

It would never, ever have dawned on Kate to do something like that, but Anna just couldn't resist!

George

Earlier in the school year, I was talking about one of my friend's and her kids.  Anna said, "Oh, yeah!  I see George at school a lot!"

I said, "Anna, George doesn't go to your school.  He goes to a different school."

She said, "Then why do I always see him there?"

I said, "It might be a boy who looks like him."

She contemplated it for a while, and said, "I always say hi and he says hi back, but he says his name isn't George."

"Anna," I said, laughing, "it must just be a boy who looks like George, but it isn't George."

Just recently, the topic of George came up again, and Anna said, "I still see George in the hall a lot, but he still tells me his name isn't George."

This poor boy!

Three-year-old Anna with George in 2011

Kate is eight

Since Kate turned eight on the eighth, it was her golden birthday.  

We made cupcakes in golden wrappers with golden sprinkles and gold coins for her to share with her class and to have at her birthday party.

Dave took her to Chicago where she bought her first American Girl doll, Sage, 

 and had a birthday meal.

 She had her party at Infinite Gymnastics.

And she celebrated with her cousins at Grandma's that weekend, as well!

Best laid plans

Last week Dave had the idea to fill Kate's bed with gold balloons for her golden birthday.  Brilliant!, I thought.  She will be thrilled!

I couldn't find gold balloons at the first few stores I went to, so this week I dragged the twins to the party store where Ally had one of her now-infamous tantrums.  Then last night, Dave and I spent our evening pumping up 30 some balloons.  Then I snuck them onto her bed, one at a time, so as not to wake her up.   I was giddy picturing her waking up this morning, and being overcome with the delightful surprise.  I imagined her reporting to everyone for the next week how she woke up on her golden birthday covered in golden balloons.  I told Dave, "She'll remember this for the rest of her life!"

In the middle of the night, Kate came into my room.  "I can't cover up," she said, groggily, "There are gold balloons all over my bed."

"Do you love it?" I asked, with a huge smile.

She left the room.

She reported this morning, in response to my excited question, So, what did you think when you saw all those balloons?

"I thought, 'What?  Did Anna and the twins leave balloons all over my bed?'  So, I pushed them all to the side and was finally able to get back to sleep."

Humor

Luke finds it pretty entertaining when his potty occasionally shoots out from under the toilet seat and splatters the bathroom in urine.  

So, yesterday when I heard him giggle and announce, "My potty so funny, Mommy!!" I was doubtful he meant his urine had started attending Stand Up Comedy classes.  

I was right to have my doubts.

Gold coins

I was unpacking groceries in the kitchen.  Ally was sitting on the counter talking with me and "helping."

I had some small chocolate coins. I took one out and then "found" it behind her ear.  She thought it was pretty neat.  She unwrapped and enjoyed the coin.  A minute later, I "found" another one behind her ear.  She enjoyed that one as I put away more groceries.

A little while later, as I started dinner, I looked over to see her hopefully feeling all around her ear and tugging on it.

Send a letter

As we waited for the bus, Anna asked, "Can you send a letter to God."

I used this as a lesson to teach how God always hears us.  "You can talk to God anytime.  You can talk to him now; you can talk to him during school; you can talk to him in the middle of the night.  God hears all your prayers."

"I'll talk to him right now, then," Anna decided.  Right, I thought, no need to send him a letter.  He's always available.  It's better than a text message.

"God," Anna said, folding her hands and bowing her head, "I'm going to send you a letter and a picture of you and me."

I think I was missing her point.

Drop it!

"No, Finley!" I heard the kids yell, "Get Jesus out of your mouth!"

Yes, we have the Nativity Scene set up.

The season

'Tis the season.

The season that, my entire adult life, has inevitably

brought me to stress induced tears at least once a year.  

Not this year.

This year, I will focus on celebrating the birth of our savior.  

Our savior who came to make amends between me and God.  

So, I don't have to be perfect, 

or even successful, 

I just have to be faithful.

And, this year I will live a lesson for my kids.  

I will model that the season --and life-- is not about being perfect.  

It's not about appearances. 

It's about relationships.

 

Our relationship with God and our relationships with each other.

So, I will not push them aside in my frenzy to buy gifts 

for their teachers, the neighbors, and the mailman, 

and I will not grumble if they sneeze on a batch of Christmas cookies.

I won't stay up late stressing about the perfect gifts

 to make each of their Christmases special.

I will focus on the time we have together.

Because I am what my kids need.  

They don't need perfect cookies.  They don't need the perfect present.

They need their mom.

Just a regular, imperfect mom.  

And that, in all my glorious imperfection, I can be.

Luke

The other day, Dave mentioned, off hand, how I spoil Luke.

I completely disagreed with him.

Last night Dave and I were folding laundry and each of the kids were helping put it away.  Ally eagerly ran and put away her pants and I held out a pile of underwear to Luke and said, "Here, Lukey, put these in your underwear drawer."

"You can do it," he said matter-of-factly.

"No, buddy, you put them away."

"I'm playing," he explained.

I sighed and decided Dave might have been on to something.

I explained that we are all part of a family and we all need to help out.  He put them away.  I think I'm going to have to work on making sure Luke's not getting spoiled.