“Mom, Take A Picture!”

25 Aug 2011 1 Comment

by Natalie in Parenting Battles, Trying to be a Better Mom, What's a mom to do?

Something he drew on his drawing board but didn't want to erase.

The popcorn tin from last Christmas.

Normally when a child yells, “Mom, take a picture!” It means he or she is about to do something amazing. Not when my 5-year-old yells it. When I hear that phrase I know he’s about to ask me to document the final moments of some piece of trash I’m going to make him throw away.

My oldest is a hoarder/collector who would save his nose-wiping tissue if I let him. He has the unique ability to fall in love with the most random objects and then desperately want to keep them forever.

We’ve had a lot of conflict recently when it comes to his collections. Honestly we are running out of room in his bursting closet and my husband and I need some relief. So we struck a deal with him. Whenever he wants to keep something that we don’t approve of, we’ll take a picture of it and print it off.

The cup of bugs he caught at a family party at a park.

Now I’ll admit he gets some of his saver style from his mother. I like to keep items of sentimental value. But so far

most of the stuff he wants to keep is junk. Like the chocolate milk bottle he drank empty at McDonald’s, or the bone-dry bubbles container

he finished off in the backyard. Two of my favorite “keepsake” pictures we have taken recently are of the metal popcorn tin we got for

A beetle on our side porch.

Christmas last

year that had caramel popcorn melted to its insides and the Styrofoam cup filled with a spider, ant and two beetles that he collected at a family gathering at a park.

Growing up we loved when my mom drove us by a house in town that was loaded with junk. We nicknamed it the junkyard – think the beast’s yard

A dragonfly he caught at his great-grandpa's 80th birthday party.

from The Sandlot times 20. It was disgusting yet mesmerizing. Piles of old broken down machinery layered the lawn. I always wondered about the man who collected all of the junk. I heard they made him clean it up after a bomb scare in

A giant butterfly he caught at grandma's house.

his yard when I was a late teen. I think my oldest may turn into that man.

Now I’m sure you’re envisioning giant mountains of garbage piled throughout his bedroom. Trust me, it isn’t that bad. But that’s because I don’t let him keep everything he wants. What happens when he moves out? I’ll have to hire him a housekeeper to keep him from swimming in trash.

I know what you’re thinking. It’s not that big of a deal. I have to clean my kid’s room all the time. But it’s emotional every

time my hand goes to place something of his in the garbage and I hear “That’s my special ________ (fill in the blank).” It’s hard to tell what’s special and what’s just plain garbage. Sometimes I have to sneak stuff into the outside garbage when he’s not looking only to worry that he’ll ask for it later.

The picture-taking strategy is starting to help. I’ll probably end up with dozens of photos of pieces of trash. But it’s worth it if he’ll finally let me throw some of it away. Maybe he’ll grow out of his hoarding habits someday and I’ll look back at those pictures and laugh.

A baby pine cone he found in the mountains.

Nemo Update

22 Aug 2011 Leave a comment

by Natalie in Dealing with Death Tags: , ,

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I don’t normally post on Mondays, but I thought I would give you all an udpate on our family pet.

Nemo went to the big pond in the sky today. He took a turn for the worst Sunday morning before church. At about the same time I was trying to get the boys to brush their teeth before heading out the door, they noticed him twitching sideways again in his tank.

Needless to say we were late for church as we tried in vain to to help him. He must have offically died late Sunday night or early Monday morning.

The boys actually took their fish’s death quite well. We buried him in the corner of our front flower bed tonight. My oldest wanted him to have a headstone, so we found a big rock and painted his name on it.

We cleaned Nemo’s tank last Wednesday so I am hoping and praying that had nothing to do with his death after what happened last time when we nearly killed him. I just have to keep telling myself that he was at least 4 years old – which in my opinion is ancient for a goldfish.

School Shopping Stress

18 Aug 2011 Leave a comment

by Natalie in Don't ever take your kids..., Parenting Battles, What's a mom to do? Tags: , , ,

It’s no secret that I am not excited to send my 5-year-old to all-day kindergarten this fall.  But I decided to try to show my support and encouragement for his new school year by taking him shopping for some new school clothes.

Big mistake.

The shopping trip backfired, doing nothing to better our relationship.

I spent most of the time hollering, “Knock it off,” as I chased down my 3- and 5-year- olds while glancing at clothes out of the corner of my eye. Luckily I invited my mom to come, so she could help me reel them in.

We went to one store and were in there for less than an hour. It could have been less than a half hour if my boys would have behaved. I keep waiting for the day that they realize that if they cooperate and do what I ask them to do, it will make things go faster, giving us more time to do things that they ask to do.

But they still haven’t figured that out so they fight back making things worse.

First of all we made the mistake of trying to get the boys to sit in a shopping cart. That would keep them close, right? Right. But the department-store shopping cart is about one-fourth the size of a grocery-store shopping cart. And they have problems with the carts at the grocery store.

I think the urge to pinch, punch and pick on your brother is multiplied by 100 when you are in close proximity. They weren’t in that cart for two minutes before one of them was crying.

Then we let them down. That’s when I wish I would have had two of those kid-leash things.

I understand that kids are crazy and that little boys don’t love to shop, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s okay for my children to run around the store hiding under folded clothes and swinging from hanging rails.  They literally looked like wild monkeys.

They were having the time of their lives at my expense. I think in their mind the department store was a whole new McDonald’s-style playground with unlimited possibilities. Fun for them. Death for me.

One of the highlights was when we asked my oldest to try on some slip-on sneakers. We wanted to see him walk in the shoes, but of course the pair was hooked together with an elastic band.

He put one shoe on his left foot and then took off as fast as he could, hobbling around the corner with the right foot’s shoe and inch away from tripping him with every step. I thought for sure he was going to come crashing down into some end-cap display. At least it slowed him up making him easier to catch.

Then came time to try on a pair of jeans. You would have thought we had asked to re-administer his kindergarten shots. He flopped around on the floor trying to get away while my mom held him down and pulled his legs inside.

It was mass chaos and it stressed me right out. My mother thought it was hilarious. Probably because I did stuff like that to her when I was young.

But was really got to me was the fact that I was trying to help and take care of my son by buying him some nice things for school and he treated me like dirt. He acted completely ungrateful as he totally ignored my pleas for good behavior. Hopefully after the talk we had when we got home he’ll think twice before acting like that again – at least anytime soon.

Now that I think about it maybe our shopping trip didn’t completely backfire. It helped me realize that it might be nice for me to let someone else deal with his wild-side outbursts for a change. Believe me, I’ll miss him while he’s at school, but a little structure and discipline will do him good.

Words of Wisdom

11 Aug 2011 5 Comments

by Natalie in Dealing with Death Tags: , , , ,

I wouldn’t wish the loss of a child on my worst enemy. And yet, during the past couple of months I have seen three friends forced to face that loss. I am seriously starting to worry that I am jinxing those around me.

I don’t know if I just wasn’t as sensitive to it before, but it seems like pregnancy loss is all around me now.

Ever since Luca died I have been terrified of pregnant women. I worry for them. I stress over them. I feel awkward and nervous around them. I know first-hand that a positive pregnancy test doesn’t necessarily guarantee a healthy bundle of joy at the end of 9-month’s time.

So I’m starting to think I should steer clear of expecting women just in case my bad luck may be rubbing off on them.

The most recent loss impacted me more than I ever imagined it could. My friend delivered her tiny baby girl stillborn at 22 weeks. I went to see my friend and practically cried through the entire visit. I hate that someone I care about will have to face similar sorrows as I did as she works toward healing her broken heart.

Not only did her loss conjure up memories and emotions of when we laid little Luca to rest, but it brought back all of the raw feelings of true sorrow I have experienced off and on during the past 15 months.

The worst part is that even though I have survived the death of a child I am no resident expert on how to live through that loss. Everyone is so different and will have different ways to heal.

You could say that people are being placed in my path because I will be able to relate to what they are going through, but I still don’t know what to say to those who share a similar fate. I have no words of wisdom to help ease others’ pain. There were no words to comfort me when my arms were empty and my heart crushed into pieces. Nothing anyone said or did would ever bring breath back to my baby’s lips and so it did nothing to help.

I wish I were a stronger person. That people could come to me and I could help them understand and work through their losses. But honestly usually all I do is cry as I tell them what they already know – that losing a child stinks. And it stinks forever. There’s no magic solution to remove the pain.

After Luca died, I wanted to be around other women who had experienced a loss. I knew they couldn’t take away my pain, but I still wanted to know how they felt, what caused their child’s death, what they did to remember their baby, and so on. I wanted to hear that they had reacted like I had and that I was “normal” in my loss.

They were the only ones who could relate to what I was going through. The only ones who knew how it felt to bury a baby.

I guess that even though I have no inspirational advice on how to get rid of the pain, I still may have something else to offer. The fact that I survived. Survived all of the lonely nights of self-pity, worry and guilt. Survived the shock, horror and grief. Survived the hardest thing I could ever imagine experiencing.

Maybe the fact that I could keep living in spite of my grief will be inspiration enough. I just hope and pray that my friends who will need that inspiration will be few and far between. Like I said before, I wouldn’t wish the loss of a child on my worst enemy.

My Year in Headstone Pictures

04 Aug 2011 1 Comment

by Natalie in Dealing with Death, My Angel Baby

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One year ago I received a very unique birthday gift – the placement of my son’s headstone.

I don’t know exactly when it was set, but I had been checking regularly for weeks, waiting for the cemetery grounds workers to lay the granite slab. I went to the cemetery by myself early on my birthday, Aug. 3, and found it was finally there.

Now I have hundreds upon hundreds of photos of my oldest two sons first 18 months. But unfortunately I don’t have that many of Luca.

I am truly blessed and lucky to have beautiful, professional photos of my son’s perfect angelic face, but we really only got to see him twice – once at the hospital and once at the funeral home.

Therefore, most of the photos I have of Luca are not of Luca but of things that remind me of Luca. I thought I’d share those photos with you.

Most of the photos are of his little resting place. We try to go there on major holidays or special occasions.

Sometimes when I go I look around at his babyland neighbors and wish I had done more to decorate his tiny headstone. Some parents are so thoughtful and elaborate in their displays.

Other times I am super excited at the way we have remembered our youngest family member throughout the year. Like when we found the candy cane solar lights during the Christmas season.

Now I have written before about how I don’t completely enjoy visiting the cemetery, but despite my reservations, I still want to do something outward to remember him. My two oldest boys love to go too. They feel important as they scrub their brother’s headstone with toothbrushes. It’s a small gesture that makes us feel like we are serving him in some small, strange way.

Now I know that my handful of cemetery-decoration photos does not hold a candle to 18 month’s worth of baby’s-firsts photos, but they’re all I’ve got.

I hope you enjoy!