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The Untold Perils of Driving with Children

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The other day we were out doing errands and heading to IFA, one of my kids favorite stores. They love looking at the baby chicks, duckies, and rabbits and all the different hutches and chicken coops. I like it be cause they have great prices on lawn fertilizer and stuff that you can’t get anywhere else. Props for being awesome parents and getting stuff checked off the to do list at the same time, right?

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Squee!

Well, almost.  Two minutes into the drive Baby D starts screaming.  We passed a McDonalds and he wants to go play.  It doesn’t matter that we just ate lunch, he stretches his pudgy fingers toward the window and throws himself against the five point harness and screams, “‘Donoulds! Donoulds!” as loud as he can.  This continues until the golden arches are well out of sight. I’m pretty sure there isn’t another on the way there and I make a mental note not to come back the same way to avoid another bout of screams.

The older two no longer scream for McDonalds, thankfully.  Their protests come in the form of whining, manipulating, and flat out being obnoxious – usually because they are getting on each others nerves for offences such as breathing and existing, or their batteries on their devices have died. When I saw the rides and balloons of the county fair ahead in the distance I knew I was in for it.  No amount of cute chicks or duckies would beat anything they would see as we passed.

Had I the presence of mind to trick them into looking the other way I would have. “Hey kids, I think I see a giant creeper climbing over the mountain out this window!” It sounds lame, and it works and I couldn’t get the words out in time.  Dang it.

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The excited shrieks filled the backseat as we all watched the ferris wheel make is rounds next to the road.   The whole fairground is filled with rides and stands selling funnel cake and hot dogs.  And we say no.  We aren’t going.

Worst parents ever.

As predicted, the car erupts into screaming and wailing. It’s not that we don’t want to go, if the prices for the rides were reasonable and there wasn’t much of a wait to get on then we might find a way to go for an hour or two, but they aren’t.  When each ride is anywhere from one to three dollars to ride and a parent has to come along and you have several kids, one of which is too little to ride, and it takes anywhere from thirty minutes to well over an hour to wait in line for each one, and waiting in line is one of those things that your kids can’t handle for any amount of time – just thinking about it makes me break out in an anxious sweat.

One day we will go, when everyone is old enough to handle standing in lines and understand that waiting isn’t mom and dad’s way of inflicting torture.  Until then, we endure the bouts of anger and – heaven forbid – the whining, and simply drive on.

 

The Burrito Fiasco

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We are blessed to have a little slice of entropy at our house.  Entropy is the force of nature that abhors order and will pull things back into a general state of chaos.  In our house this force of nature is a vivacious two-year old, although his older brother and sister definitely qualify.  We all have our moments.

This morning our toddler, Baby D, woke up an hour early and proceeded to drag me around the house by my pinkie so he could turn all the lights on.  I would much rather have had a nice quiet morning cuddle where we could enjoy each other without anyone else making demands on me, but no, it had to be the lights.  I wouldn’t have minded as much but more lights on equals more likelihood of waking the rest of the flock and I’ll do anything to prevent that.

Including nuking frozen burritos at 7 AM.  After he was satisfied with the lights, Baby D     started screaming and yanking at the freezer.  When this kid gets hungry he gets a little nutso. To quiet him I opened it and he grabbed the bag of frozen burritos, ran to the couch and sat clutching them in his arms like they were a long lost favorite stuffed animal.

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Posing with the burritos, note the cheesy smile

You see, this kid only talks when he absolutely has to and that makes figuring out his needs tough.  When he’s tired or angry or frustrated, which is all the time, he won’t speak but instead will grunt and point and drag you around by whatever finger he can get his little hands on.  Usually it’s the pinkies because they are easier to grab and get your attention faster. They hurt more when twisted.

The whole burrito fiasco is only the tip of the iceberg in a series of bizarre and typical two-year old behavior that humbles me daily. Yesterday we had a run in with smelly markers and his hands are still green. I wish it were easier and not always this ongoing game of charades trying to figure him out. Sometimes I feel like a human metal detector with him riding on my hip and pointing towards what he is trying to find. Most of the time I can figure it out, and if I’m lucky it’s something he can actually play with and not scissors or hoards of candy.

If I’m not lucky there’s the screaming and whining and hitting and throwing things and the decent into chaos which two-year olds are famous for.  Some days, I swear he trying to see just how far down the rabbit hole of crazy I can go. I haven’t found the bottom yet, and not for want of trying.

Maybe today will be day!

 

Salt Dough Gone Wild!

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It was one of those long stretches of summer afternoon when it was too hot to go outside. The kids slid around the house, skulking, with nothing better to do than pick fights with each other and in general, drive me nuts.

Days like these scream for distraction and that day a movie wasn’t going to cut it.  I scanned through my “Gonna try this” folder on Pinterest and saw a post about salt dough. Perfect.  It’s creative, it’s quiet, it’s unplugged, and even better, I had all the ingredients.

My kids, like most kids, love play dough.  When they play it’s a whole body sensory experience.  The dough ends up ground into their clothes, hair, crumbled all over the floor, and mushed into the carpet.  If it were cleaner, I would do it more often.

So, we made salt dough and I set the kids to the task of making dough people.  Soon the house was filled with laughing once more as they posed and dressed their creations.  One of the perks of salt dough is that once it dries it can be painted. Usually this process takes several days of air drying, or several hours in a warm oven.

I’m not that patient.  Plus, I read that salt dough can be speed dried in the microwave. Dough boy got nuked and turned out great.  Once he had cooled off he was indeed dry and ready to paint.  Dough girl was a different story.  She was long and thin with narrow delicate limbs. Dough boy was stocky and thick.

It wasn’t until I smelled the panic inducing smell of smoke that I realized my mistake. Dough girl was on fire.  I grabbed the plate and ran her outside, hoping to minimize the amount of smoke that filled the house. But it was too late.  The whole house reeked of burnt flour, which is oddly similar to the smell of burnt popcorn.

Dough girl was toast.

I braced myself for the tantrum that was sure to follow. It didn’t come. Instead, I found my daughter doubled up in laughter.  She thought the whole incident was hilarious!

There was enough dough for her to make another, and this time I made sure not to light it on fire!

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Novel Escapism

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To be transported, to escape, to live another life… These are all reasons for diving into a good book.  As much as we can enjoy our reality, there is something so appealing in sliding inside the pages of a story and living someone else’s life, even if just for a few hours.

The kind of escapism found in a good book can’t be found anywhere else.  Some will argue that they find it in TV and movies as well, but to me it’s not the same. Watching TV or a movie engages only two senses, sight and hearing and these are provided for the watcher at the push of a button.  All that is required is to watch.  In a book however, the reader must do far more than just keep his eyes open.  He must read then interpret each idea, using his brain to figure out what it means.  He must form a mental picture using the descriptions on the page.

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James Tissot [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

If an author were to describe a woman wearing a yellow dress, the reader would then have to fill in the blanks – usually to their preference.  If the author doesn’t include a description of her hair the reader is free to give her whatever style and color he prefers.  The reader must invest time and mental energy to creating the image.  In contrast, TV and movies simply give the image to the watcher.  Because they have invested no energy of their own, the experience isn’t as strong or as powerful.

Although a book is only words, those words have power to invoke feelings and reactions. It is the goal of the writer to make the reader feel. When a reader can’t put down a book because they have become hooked. If we as writers succeed in that, we have created something worth reading. The reader doesn’t only see what the character is doing, but they are also privy to what is going on inside that characters head, something that is difficult if not impossible to do on the screen.  When the reader gets that unique perspective of what the character is feeling and thinking, they can dig more deeply into that character’s world making the reading experience even richer.

I still like TV and movies, they still pack a powerful punch and, when done well, are excellent ways to escape for a while.  They are a wonderful source of ideas and inspiration when I’m feeling drained, and one can be finished in the course of an hour or two.  It’s the ultimate quick fix.  But – when I really want to escape, you’ll find me in a book.

How do you escape?  Share in the comments below!

Soccer and Herding Cats

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My favorite shorty

The battle lines are drawn, the players are ready.  Well . . . almost. One of the players is swinging from the goal post, and another won’t leave his mothers lap.  Half the defending team has their backs turned to the ball because the ice cream truck has driven by, three are already making a bee line to their parents screaming to get a treat.  Several players on offence have tackled each other to the ground in fits of giggles and screams.  And we pay to be a part of it.  Every year.

Coaches for preschool soccer have a tough job.  First, they must keep all the children on the field.  This is harder than it sounds. Children move like a group of cats, running in every which direction the wind takes them.  The children that the coaches manage to get on the field then must be herded towards the ball and convinced to kick it in a specific direction, namely, the goal.  There are always one or two that understand how the game works and will dutifully run and usually kick the ball out-of-bounds.  Other duties of the coaches include tying shoe laces, scooping downed children back on their feet, removing children from the goal posts, and being endlessly positive and perky.  They make nowhere near enough for all that.

The only thing that might be more amusing than watching the game is to listen to the parents in the side lines.  At the beginning of the season expectations are high and parents shout and cheer for their little one to kick goals or steal the ball from the other team.  As the season progresses these cheers change to more practical goals like not throwing fits when they don’t get a turn, or when someone breathes on them.  If you closed your eyes you might almost imagine you were at a dog park.  “Where’s the Ball Baby? Get the ball, get the ball!  Good girl! Way to go!” 

At times as a parent it is necessary to make a few ridiculous rules to preserve some family dignity.  My #1 rule to my daughter – There is no crying in soccer.  She believed me for about the first five practices before she realized she’d been duped.  Another ridiculous rule – keep your shirt down.  For some reason soccer jerseys only come in one size for the little kids, super large.  The temptation of pulling the circus tent like shirt up and over the head for some is too hard to resist.

In the end, the pictures are taken, the trophies are given, and we all cheer that the season is over.