Happy Halloween!

We just finished up a nice Halloween evening, and the kids are finally in bed after staying up late in a (likely unsuccessful) attempt to get them to sleep in to at least the regular wake-up time tomorrow after we "fall back" tonight.

Charlie has wanted to be a hockey player for two years now, so this year I was able to find a uniform--Edmonton Oilers, the only choice--and that's what he was. Cort supplemented my uniform purchase with some cool gloves and a hockey stick, and Charlie got a lot of oohs and ahs from the guys at the Halloween party we went to this afternoon. He looked pretty cool, I have to say.

Joe decided he wanted to be a boxer, and he looked great too. He had the boxing gloves, the headgear, and even the taped up shoes. We thought he was going to be a scrawny boxer, but once he got dressed up he looked pretty authentic. Definitely a featherweight, but authentic.

And since I was afraid this might be the last year that I could dictate Will and Helen's costumes, I did so. And they were A B S O L U T E L Y A D O R A B L E as . . .

Raggedy Ann and Andy!! They really were cute, and except for some initial reluctance on the part of Raggedy Andy, they both loved the costumes and the entire evening.

We did only a little bit of trick-or-treating--a visit to both the boys' teachers and then a trip around the block. After that, we hung out on our front porch and handed out candy. Honestly, everyone enjoys that just as much, if not more. Charlie was our official candy-hander-outer, along with Uncle Rick (who came in town for the weekend, and we loved seeing him!). Joseph was our official people spotter (he would alert us whether it was one person or a group, and if they were scary) and candy-bowl-filler-upper. Will and Helen were mostly our official candy eaters, but if the stream of trick-or-treaters waned, they would both ask for "More people! More people!!" By 9pm we had handed out all of the candy we had bought and most of the candy the kids had collected, so we called it a night.

Hope everyone else had a great Halloween too!

The aforementioned "initial reluctance" on the part of Raggedy Andy

Helen and Joe trick-or-treating at a neighbor's house

The Maddux kiddos doing the neighborhood

Helen enjoying some of her loot

Charlie handing out goodies

Will and Helen enjoyed themselves and the candy

The successful evening can be seen on his face!

Oink, oink

We've been trying to decide whether to get H1N1 flu vaccines for the kids.  Looks like we can quit worrying about it.

Two down, likely two (or four) more to go.  The Maddux household is pretty much under quarantine.

Don't leave home without it

There was a bunch of junk mail sitting on the kitchen island the other day. Helen picked up a solicitation for an American Express gold card, which we already have. (By the way, why do they waste money sending us offers for credit cards we already have?)

"Ooooh," she said, pointing at the picture of the card. "Mommy's money!!"

Makes My Monday

Do you know what makes my Monday? The neighborhood Moms group I'm in. Not because of the comraderie of being with other moms. I've never attended a playgroup. All I do is read the posts. From some of those posts, I find out interesting information about our neighborhood and kid activities. But that's not why I like it, either.

I like it because so many posts make me feel like I am, at most, a Supermom, and at least, much, much saner than the rest of the world.

Like the woman who posted to ask if anyone would go pick something up for her halfway across the city, because she has two kids and doesn't want to have to get out with them. Who do you think you're posting to, lady? EVERYONE in the group has kids.

Or the woman who posted that her husband came home every night and cooked dinner for the whole family, allowing her to spend all her time playing with her two children when she got home from work. But they are a year and a half apart in age and she doesn't know how she can play with both of them at the same time. And she can't ask her husband for help because he's busy making this fabulous dinner for everyone. Ooooh. Rough life you have there, chick.

Or the woman who posted that her child's pet coackroach had babies, did anyone want one? Seriously? I'm curious to know if she got any takers.

Or the woman who posted that her yard needed weeding and could anyone come over and help. And, oh, she's 7 months pregnant so she couldn't actually join you in the weeding, but she would make you some lemonade. I think that one took the cake. She posted this to over 300 moms in the neighborhood. Guess I'm curious if she got any takers, too.

I could literally go on and on. All I know is that on Monday, and every day, I look forward to receiving the group's daily digest of posts, just for entertainment value. It rarely disappoints. Rather, it usually makes my day.

Where is Supernanny when you need her?

I used to watch Supernanny.  The kids on that show were always so bad.  They made our kids look like angels.  I often wondered what the parents had done that caused their children to behave that way.  Watching the show always made me feel like such a great parent. 

I haven't watched the show in awhile because, well, we don't have time to watch much of anything.  But I'm wondering if it's still on.  Because we are now eligible for the show.  

This could be our ten minutes of fame:  "These parents have not one, but two, sets of twins.  Four kids in the span of three years!  And none of the four kids ever listens or obeys them!  Can Supernanny help before these parents go crazy?  Tonight at 8.  7 central."

Can't win for losing

Some days, like yesterday, I sit at my desk all day and I can't concentrate. I wonder what my kids are doing. I wish I were with them. I wish I could read a book or play a game with Joseph. I wish I could throw the ball in the yard with Charlie. I wish I had more time to spend with Will and Helen, and that maybe if I had that time they would know as many letters, numbers, shapes, etc. as Charlie and Joe did at that age.

Then Cort calls and tells me he can pick up the boys at school so I can stay at work, and I know I should be grateful for the extra time to get things done (which I desperately need), but again I can't concentrate because I wonder what the boys and Cort are doing, how their day went, what they have for homework.

Then I get home. Dinner's ready, how nice. Should be a great evening.

But then three of the four kids SCREAM at dinner. Will screams because he doesn't want the chicken I cut up for him but wants to "Do it myself" (like most two-year-olds, he is neither allowed to use a knife nor capable of cutting up meat himself). Helen screams because she wants to GET the chicken by herself, by crawling on TOP of the table, and I won't let her. Joseph screams because everyone else is screaming, he doesn't like it, and all the screaming "makes" him fall onto the floor where he rolls around under the table with his hands on his ears, screaming. Both Will and Joseph end up in time out. I spend dinner time cutting up chicken, serving vegetables (including separating the desirable vegetables from the undesirable ones -- and which is which varies for each kid), refilling four cups of milk (never at the same time), cleaning up spills, disposing of seeds found in the oranges, and promising an insistent Joseph that I won't actually throw the seeds away but we can instead plant them and grow an orange tree.

After that, everything is kind of a blur.

I remember Joseph ripping down our chore chart and me blowing my top at him.

I remember sending the boys upstairs for a bath but then not being able to convince Will and Helen to leave the dinner table, even though they weren't really eating, and the boys whining that I wasn't upstairs yet.

I remember the boys taking up space in the bathtub so that there was no room for Will and Helen, which made Will and Helen mad. I remember telling Joseph three times to sit up in the tub and make room, then yelling at him. Which I sort of had to do because by this time Will and Helen were screaming. Again.

I remember Will crying because he wanted to do something else himself, but having no idea what that even was.

I remember at least three, if not four, kids crying when they got out of the bathtub.

I remember Helen refusing to get dressed and making four (fruitless but looonnng) trips to the potty. I remember chasing her around naked (she's fast) and struggling hard (she's also strong) to hold her down to put her pajamas on. While she screamed.

I remember Cort blowing his top and taking every single book out of Charlie and Joseph's room as punishment, and Charlie crying, crying, and crying over it.

I remember more crying from Will and Helen, but I don't remember why.

I remember making Charlie go to bed early, and his crying over that, over the book we read, over the fact that Joseph was playing with Will and Helen and he wasn't, and over just about everything for at least half an hour before bedtime.

I remember Joseph getting mad because he did not want the breakfast planned for this morning (a breakfast that is usually one of his favorites).

I remember whining. I remember screaming. I remember crying. I remember more whining, screaming, and crying. I remember both Cort and I yelling. Lots.

I remember thinking that I didn't know why, when I was at work yesterday, I ever wanted to come home to these kids.

But it's kind of like childbirth, I guess. I'm back at work this morning. And I can't wait to see them again.

The lawyers' kid

The other evening the boys and I were leaving a nice little event at their elementary school, where we'd had a perfectly wonderful time. But Charlie did not want to leave. So he whined. He cried. He lagged 20 feet behind me and Joe. He turned around and tried to go back inside the school until I gave him the evil don't-you-dare-do-it-you-can-bet-that-I-really-mean-it eye. So then he whined and cried some more over the unfairness of it all.

So I informed him, calmly (I've taken a parenting class, and that's what they say you should do, always be calm), that if he continued to whine and cry he would be going to bed early the next night, because clearly he wasn't getting enough sleep if this sort of thing caused him such grief.

You guessed it. Not a minute later he was at it again. And then again. So I lowered the boom -- early bedtime the next night -- and that REALLY got him going. Can you say downward spiral? Now he was whining, crying, throwing a fit, and trying to argue with me.

"I did NOT continue to whine."

"Charlie, you are whining right now."

"I did NOT continue to whine! And I do NOT have to go to bed early!"

"Charlie, do not argue with me. You are whining now. And you are going to bed early. That's that."

"I DID NOT CONTINUE TO WHINE!!!!!"

"CHARLIE!!!" (regain composure and calmness) "I am not going to argue about it. The discussion is over. I'm not going to listen to anything else about it."

After some length of time of ignoring him, the whining sort of stops. But he keeps talking, half to me and half to himself.

"I did not continue to whine. I stopped. Then I started again. Then I stopped. Then I started again. That is not CONTINUING."

Wordless Wednesday (My boys - Caymans 2009)

"What the . . . ?"

That's Joseph's new favorite phrase. I think he picked it up from Cort. When an adult says it, it seems almost polite. Like he is above saying anything offensive.

When a kid says it -- especially when my kid says it -- I can't help but think that everyone around him thinks that his little mind knows those missing words.

Race relations. And, as always, sports.

The other day Charlie piped up with the observation that some people's faces are darker than his. "You mean their skin?" I asked. So we ended up having a discussion about different skin color, how all sorts of people have all sorts of differences, etc., etc. A little teaching opportunity. Some people have light skin, and some people have dark skin.

"Right," says Charlie. "Like Andrew McCutchen. He has dark skin." I agree, and ask if Andrew is in his kindergarten class. "No Mom. Andrew McCutchen." He says. "The Pittsburg Pirates centerfielder!"

Oh, of course. I've always heard it said that some of life's greatest lessons are learned through sports.

The many faces of kindergarten

So we've officially been in kindergarten a month. How's it going?

Well . . . . Turns out there is a universal public elementary school discipline scheme that involves students starting each day with green, progressing to yellow for questionable behavior, and moving on to red if they are really delinquent. The end color is communicated to Travis kindergarteners in their folder by way of a happy face (stayed on green), straight face (got yellow), or sad face (the dreaded red). Now, I have long given up any notion that my kids are the idyllic, obedient children that I always imagined they would be in school (after all, I was exactly such a kid). But I thought we would have at least a couple of months before their behavior warranted discipline.

No such luck. In the first full month, the boys collectively had 3 happy faces that nevertheless included notes from the teacher about problem behavior, 4 straight faces, and one sad face. Most of Joe's transgressions have been behavior typical of him -- rolling around on the rug, playing when he is supposed to be working on something. Charlie, on the other hand, has been hitting. Seriously, HITTING???

But we think we are rounding the corner. The last week produced happy faces all around. I guess the adjustment to kindergarten is just bigger than we realized.

In other kindergarten news, the boys seem to be really enjoying their new school. They do not seem bored at all. The basic material--reading, math, etc.--may be what they already know, but they are presented in a way that makes all the kids think. For example, they have been reading simple stories (Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears), but have been reading different versions, comparing and contrasting them, discussing concepts like the characters, setting, etc.

And the reading itself! So far the "books" they bring home as homework are FAR below their reading level, but somehow between the class discussions and the books being read to them, the boys are now head over heels into chapter books. They are currently very into the Magic Treehouse series. We read to them at bedtime, but they've also started sneaking in a chapter here at there themselves -- getting up early and reading before breakfast, reading during naptime at school, reading while we're in the car, and reading while they wait for their after-school program to start. This morning, I had to tell Charlie to quit reading as we walked into school, for fear he was going to walk into oncoming traffic. It's so good to see them enjoying reading so much!

They've also been on TWO field trips already, including their first trip to the opera. That's what you get when you live in the big city -- their first opera experience at age 5 coincided with my first opera experience at age 38 (as chaperone). Even more exciting (to them), it was their first trip on a school bus. And they have made new friends and have had their first official playdate, with a little boy in Charlie's class. They are learning the ropes, getting comfortable with the school, and becoming more and more independent. At the same time, they are still young and sweet enough to occasionally hold hands with other little boys they have made friends with, as they walk together to class.

All in all, we are happy to be at Travis, happy we made the school decision we did, and particularly happy to see "happy faces" at the end of the day.