Unruffled

Leo, get dressed please.

Leo, it's time to get dressed.

Leo, I made your eggs. After you're dressed you can eat breakfast.

That's my script, almost every morning. In other news, isn't that one of the most frustrating things about being a mom? The nagging. The feeling that no one is listening to you. I swear I get tired of the sound of my own voice and I get on my own nerves sometimes, so I can only imagine what my children must think of me.

Back to mornings. Fourth grade seems to be going fine for Leo, but the early morning hours of his day can be less than stellar. Leo hasn't been moving very, shall we say, efficiently lately. This has led to a lot of cajoling and repetition of the same request.

Imagine my frustration yesterday morning, when, a few minutes after my twelfth request to him to get dressed, Leo appeared in the kitchen finally out of pajamas but wearing considerably less than what is customarily expected of a nine year old boy. That's when he started trying to open the back door.

"Outside! I want to go outside!" he demanded.

That's fine, I said. But you have to get dressed first.

See what I mean? I get on my own nerves, seriously.

Leo groaned at me as he's apt to do when I irritate him to new levels, and stormed back to his room.

I drank some coffee. I wiped some crumbs off the kitchen counter. I helped Ellie find a show on television. I changed a diaper and dressed a baby or two.

That's when it occurred to me. Where was Leo? And what was he doing? And why wasn't he standing in front of me, dressed?

I went to his room, knocked on his door, and then opened it.

There was Leo. Except he wasn't exactly in his room. No, he was standing at one of the the windows of his bedroom. Outside the window. Yes, he had climbed out the window. LEO CLIMBED OUT OF THE WINDOW? Because, of course.

Well, he did say he wanted to go outside, I thought to myself. Ahem.

I have to say, I've seen a lot in my days as a mom of four, but a kid climbing out the window is [thankfully] a first for me. Keep in mind it's not quite as dramatic as it sounds. Leo's room is on the ground floor, so when he climbed out of said window, he literally just stepped onto the deck. But still. Leo climbed out of the window. The window!

The look on Leo's face when I opened that bedroom door will stick with me for a long time. It was part horror/part Oh Crap/part What the Heck Do I Do Now? He immediately started scrambling to climb back inside. That's when I turned around, walked into the living room, and said to Erin, He's all yours. I think I had more coffee. And probably changed another diaper.

Erin handled Leo with aplomb as she always does. He was immediately, unabashedly contrite, bursting into tears the second she started talking to him (a sure sign that he knew he'd screwed up royally). Leo is not a crier.

It wasn't until halfway through the day that I realized I'd forgotten to mention what happened to anyone. I didn't text my usual friends about it or tell any of my co-workers (the likes of whom I often share parenting war stories anecdotes).

That's when it dawned on me. My life has reached such a stage of (wonderful) ridiculousness lately that a kid climbing out of a window--and landing safely, thank goodness--did not even phase me or give me pause. That speaks volumes. It was just another morning. I've (almost) seen it all.

And yes, we'll be heading to Home Depot this weekend, for the "better" window locks.

And It Happened on Friday the Twelfth

This is, um, not what a typical cup of coffee looks like at my house, but hey, a girl can dream, right?

Though not a coffee snob, I take my morning beverage seriously. I've been known to actually fantasize about the first cup of the morning--the clink of the cup, the splash of the cold cream, the toasty warm mug and the feel of the soothing steam as I raise it to my lips. It's not just something I look forward to, to start my day, I require it. 

But mornings at our house are just a touch circus-like (imagine!) and so making coffee is never the first thing I do (though it probably should be, to protect the innocent from harm HA HA). If I were really smart I'd program the coffee pot the night before (because what's that old saying? Put on your own oxygen mask first?), but unattended appliances make me irrationally nervous. And so I hurry through my to-do list as quickly as possible: Breakfast, milk for the babies, get the big kids going on getting dressed. More often than not I have a baby (Hi Lucy!) on my hip as I rinse the pot and filter out and grind the beans. But as long as I'm that much closer to coffee! Coffee! What's a little company?

I'd sensed something was off about the coffee maker the other day. Was it the odd smell of burning plastic that tipped me off? But it worked just fine on Wednesday, so I forgot about the plastic smell. Then, this morning, as I breezed through my check list and finally paused to pour that long awaited First Cup, it happened. There was no coffee. The pot was on, plugged in, little red "power" light on, but alas. Dead.

Ellie watched me tinkering with it and muttering and when I told her I thought it was broken she said, "The coffee of living? You can't live without coffee!"

Between that and the red Annie dress? Seriously, my work here is DONE. (Side note: New gummy grin: this child lost two teeth in one week and now has almost a whole row of just gum).

Meanwhile I'm wondering how much I'm willing to spend on same day shipping on a coffee pot. Because, another morning without it? Just, NO.

Harry clearly hasn't had that first cup of coffee either.

When the Weekend Can't Come Fast Enough

Allow me to set the scene. Our house, this morning (you totally know where this is going, right? What is it about this week’s mornings?).

Leo ate a good breakfast of French toast (frozen from TJ’s, before you get all impressed with me) and got dressed without too much argument. Then he decided he wanted cereal with milk, so he did what he is apt to do, “put his order in.” He goes into the refrigerator and/or cupboards and places what he’d like to eat on the kitchen counter.

That was all fine and swell and I would have been agreeable to Leo having “second breakfast,” except that it was about 7:40, the bus was imminent and by no means did I want a repeat of yesterday. I told Leo this and so my little mule and I had a quiet war. I put the carton of milk back in the refrigerator and the cereal back in the cupboard and he trailed behind me and took both items back out and placed them on the counter. We did little dance about ten times.

That. Boy. Is. Stubborn.

Seriously, sometimes the number of times I have to say something to him (such as, Leo, there is no time for cereal, the bus is coming and you don’t want them to leave you like they did yesterday do you?), well, I get on my own damn nerves.

The bus came. I panicked briefly when it appeared briefly that Leo was not going to go outside. But I cheerfully “redirected” him with clapping! and exclamation about his lizard! (Remember, the famous rubber lizard). And how exciting would it be to show the bus driver his gecko! (Because really, can you think of anything better?).

I should pause here to add that while all this was going on, Ellie was sitting on the little potty that we glamorously keep in the living room (no bathroom on our main floor—I know, I know, don’t even get me started).

Every morning we go to the bus as threesome. Usually Leo makes the dash across the lawn while I hold Ellie and she does her usual coy wave and sometimes even deigns a smile with the bus driver and aide.

Today though, with Ellie on the potty and the clock ticking and the bus waiting, I called to Ellie over my shoulder as I led Leo outside that we’d be right back. Clearly this was SO not OK with her. Because the next thing I knew, Leo was frozen on the lawn, refusing to get on the bus because Ellie was standing on the front porch with her pants around her ankles and the tears flowing. Between the volume of her cries and the fact that she was clearly unhappy (Leo is very empathetic, especially to Ellie), well that was it. Leo was going no where.

This was one of those Classic Parenthood Moments where I really did wonder where the Candid Camera was hidden. I mean, what a sight. The half naked, hysterically crying toddler, the trying-to-remain calm mother, carrying her kicking and protesting kindergartner across the grass.

Sometimes, all you can really do is laugh.

And take deep breathes. Deep, deep breaths.

A First, With a Side of Lizard

Some mornings, Leo springs out of bed with all the enthusiasm of a celebratory spark plug. He jumps up and down for scrambled eggs! He gleefully picks out his own clothes (a yellow shirt, if available, always). He cheers when I find a new episode of "Dora" for him to watch while I make lunches for him and his sister.

But many mornings are not so easy. Leo will not get out of bed. When he does finally get out of bed, Leo moves downstairs at a mind numbing, glacial pace. When asked what he wants for breakfast, the only answer is a furious and incredulous “No!” Even the beloved eggs are met with fury.

Luckily, Leo has always been fairly resilient. I believe his teacher would refer to him as "easily redirected." I wouldn’t exactly call Leo moody, but if there is an upside to his sometime mood swings, it’s that as quickly as he moves from incredulousness to be being asked what he wants for breakfast, that’s how swiftly he becomes cheerful. He’s only human. When he's angry he's very, very angry. And when he's happy? He's a sweetheart. No big news here.

So this morning it was a relief when Leo had successfully shaken the grouchiness and was finally dressed in his underwear and socks and settled comfortably on the couch and in front of the coffee table with his plate of scrambled eggs (the final shirt and pants go on after breakfast is completed—trust me, I’m a veteran ketchup stain remover). Have no doubt though, there was certainly a battle to get just that minimal amount of clothing on and just to do so there were plenty of threats to turn off the TV, to take away the eggs. He comes around. Eventually.

But today, I just knew. When I looked at the clock and it was 7:40 and Leo was still just wearing socks and underwear and Leo’s bus can come anywhere between 7:45 and 8:00 a.m. Well I knew. For the first time this year, I would be driving Leo to school myself. Certainly not the end of the world but not the most convenient turn of events either.

Sure enough, Leo’s bus pulled up at about 7:47. I did my best to wrestle the clothes quickly on him. Today he was to wear a new, quite adorable button down shirt decorated with gecko lizards. I thought the fact that some of these lizards happened to be yellow might entice Leo to get dressed quicker (maybe we would make the bus that was pulling up outside the house at this-very-moment?).

But Leo started arguing with me and stomping his feet and saying something I couldn’t understand. At first I thought he just wanted to wear a yellow shirt (an almost daily request). The next thing I knew he was running upstairs. Awesome. Keep in mind the bus was, a this very moment, outside our house. The reminder honk was imminent.

I dashed outside and across the lawn and asked the driver in the sweetest possible voice I could muster, if he could come back in five or ten minutes, maybe pick up a few more kids and swing back to get Leo (knowing full well this was totally not going to happen).

And sure enough it did not happen. The driver shook his head apologetically and shrugged his shoulders and I sped back to the house for Plan B.

When I returned inside, Leo was standing at the bottom of the stairs grinning proudly ear-to-ear, holding a tiny rubber gecko lizard. That’s what he’d run upstairs to get. He wanted to wear bring his lizard, in honor of his lizard shirt. Makes perfect sense, really. And why hadn't I thought of that?

Except for the fact that Leo tried to melt like a wet noodle into his car seat when one of the aides tried to extricate him from the car in the “kiss and go” lane at school, this story has a mostly happy ending. Leo got to school, eventually, rubber gecko and all. And I guess considering this is the first time we've ever "missed" the bus and it's almost May, well that's pretty good, right? RIGHT?

These are the days, when I finally do get to work, my first question is: Is it lunch time yet? Or better yet, happy hour?


No gecko here, just lunch bag turned silly hat. Leo is almost always game to make people laugh. And in Leo's eyes, almost anything can be a hat.