Boogers on the Wall

I am living with a couple of tenderhearted jerks.

Each and every day my two older boys beat up on each other. And each and every day it brings them to tears. Not because they get hurt, but because they can’t believe they have been so mean to their sibling.

“I feel like such a jerk,” “I think I am being so mean,” and “I am bad,” are just a few of my favorite phrases to come out of one of their sobbing mouths recently.

I don’t know where this is coming from.

Don’t get me wrong, I get after them when they pinch, kick and annoy the crap out of their brother. But it shocks me that they end up feeling so sorry for what they have done that they can’t stop crying and I have to send them to their beds where they continue to cry into their pillows until they can calm down.

It’s weird. Yet it’s sweet.

A month ago I took my baby in for his 4-month-old check-up and immunizations. I left my boys in a room with my mom while I went to get the nurse to fill out his immunization record. When I got back, my two oldest boys were bawling.

They kept saying, “I’m so sorry,” while hugging their baby brother. They hated that he had to get poked. He stopped crying long before they did and then stared at them curiously.

Last week my oldest son came to me apologizing profusely while tearing up because he “missed” the toilet and peed all over our bath rug. I don’t know what 6 year olds are normally like, but I would imagine some 6-year-old boys would have wadded up the rug, tossed it in the corner or flipped it over so that I wouldn’t have noticed.

Instead of getting after him for his poor aim, I ended up consoling him because he was so upset that he had done something wrong.

The other morning while I was riding my exercise bike (yes I was actually working out) my oldest accidentally head butted my baby. I ended up holding the poor little 18-pound guy while I rode the bike because he was crying.

But he wasn’t the only one.

My oldest sat there crying too. I didn’t even dare get mad at him for hurting his brother because he already felt so bad. Even though deep down I was super mad.

Recently while I was cooking dinner our baby was screaming and I couldn’t get to him until I put our food in the oven. My oldest kept coming into the kitchen asking me to help him cut out a paper snowflake.

I snapped at him and screamed that I couldn’t help him because I was busy.

Not only did I feel bad for not helping him make a simple snowflake, I felt miserable when I saw the apology note he handed to me after dinner.

“I am sorry that we got in a fite. I love you,” he had written in his cute first-grade penmanship.

Talk about tenderhearted. I could learn a lot from these kids.

I hope I am not the cause of their oversensitive emotions.

I want my boys to be kind, loving gentlemen. But I hope they don’t live in fear of me.

I don’t want them to grow up thinking they can’t ever make a mistake, or that they shouldn’t ever get upset.

And I definitely don’t want them to think they are “bad.” I tell them all the time that they are not.

I’m going to have to come up with a no-one-is-perfect pep talk to give to them during these pity parties.

Heaven knows I don’t want them to stop feeling sorry for antagonizing their siblings, but I don’t want them to feel as if they are going to be damned because of their actions.

And I definitely don’t want them to think they are jerks. Any 4 and 6 year-old who would cry harder than their brother did over his shots, or write an “I’m sorry” letter all on their own after their mother just yelled at them, could never be a jerk.

Has anyone seen the new kid on the PBS block, Daniel Tiger?

He’s the cute little brown-and-orange striped tiger that took over for the late Fred Rogers on the hit PBS show Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.

Now it’s called Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood and overall I really like the show. My four-year-old has watched it a few times and he likes it too.

But recently I really didn’t agree with one of the episodes.

At the beginning of the show, Daniel’s parents were heading out on a date for the night and he was nervous to be at home with a babysitter. So, the tiger couple talked to their son and told him that grownups always come back.

They even sang a catchy little tune with the lyrics: “Grownups come back.” And sure enough at the end of their date, when Daniel was in bed almost asleep, his parents came back and tucked him in.

Then later in the episode Daniel’s father was taking him to preschool. Daniel was nervous about being dropped off at school and wanted to stay with his dad. His dad broke into song, reminding his son that, “Grownups come back.”

I couldn’t help thinking, what if a grownup doesn’t come back?

My children have all had serious problems with separation anxiety, and I have had to get creative on how I help them cope with their feelings, but I don’t think I would ever sing them a song about grownups always coming back.

Maybe I’m a pessimist, but what if things don’t go according to planned and a grownup doesn’t come back?

Now I’m not saying that it happens very often, but what if you tell your child that grownups always come back and then there is a car accident or medical emergency that makes it so that a grownup can’t come back. Or worse, what if, a grownup simply chooses not to come back?

Or, on a less serious note, what if you tell your child you will always come back and then get stuck in the grocery check-out line, or hung up at a doctor’s appointment? Maybe you want to come back to pick them up, but are delayed.

What if you have promised your kid you will be there but end up having to send grandma, or the neighbor to pick them up instead?

I remember when I was pregnant with my fourth baby, having lost my third at 37 weeks gestation, my oldest son kept asking me if we were going to get to take our new baby home this time. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him yes. What if I told him that everything was going to be all right with this baby, and then it wasn’t?

I guess my past experiences have made me wary about making promises I don’t know if I can keep.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it. Maybe it’s cute that Daniel’s parents crafted a little jingle to help their son deal with a stressful situation.

But I still don’t think I’ll use the “grownups come back” phrase with my own children. I think it’s an exaggerated blanket statement that could occasionally lead to more stress or heartache.

I love my 6-year-old son with all of my heart. Letting him start kindergarten last year nearly killed me. But after spending two months of summer vacation with him, I’m feeling smothered.

The kid ALWAYS has to be right beside me.

If we are playing outside and I need to run in the house to check on dinner – he has to come with me. If we are playing the Wii downstairs and I need to run upstairs to check on his baby brother – he has to come with me. If we are cleaning up and I need to throw something away in the outside garbage – he has to come with me.

I am almost never alone.

I know what you are thinking. How cute! This little boy LOVES his mom. But I don’t think the crazy kid does it because he is enamored with me. I’m pretty sure he does it because he’s terrified of being by himself.

On two separate occasions I put him in the bathtub then ran downstairs to throw in some laundry. About five seconds down the stairs I heard little footsteps running frantically across the kitchen.

One of those times his slippery naked bum slid across the wet kitchen floor while he was racing to see where I went. He hopped out of the tub and ran across our upstairs because he was too afraid to be by himself for two minutes.

I was so mad that I didn’t have much sympathy when he hurt himself in the buff.

One night, after the boys were in bed, I made the mistake of running around the corner to pick something up from a neighbor’s house. My husband was home, but he was outside mowing the lawn. I tried to sneak out our front door, but apparently my oldest heard me.

I was gone three minutes, but I am pretty sure he screamed and cried the whole time. I honestly felt bad that he was so scared, but on the other hand I was so mad that he didn’t trust me. I have told him numerous times that I will NEVER leave him completely alone.

You can bet I won’t try to sneak away again – even if his dad is home but mowing the lawn outside. And he won’t let me.

His bedroom is on the same side of the house as the outside door we use the most. Unfortunately the storm door screeches wildly when swung. If I try to go outside for any reason after his 8:30 p.m. bedtime I can almost guarantee that he’ll hang over the side of his top bunk bed and pull open the blinds to see who has escaped.

I feel like a prisoner in my own house.

I think Kindergarten actually made him worse. I don’t know if during his 8-hour school days he spent any time alone – except to use the bathroom. He was clingy before the school year started, but now he’s holding onto me with a death grip.

I’ve got to find some comforting ways to let him know that he is OK on his own; to reassure him that I won’t leave him in danger. I’ve got to lovingly show him that although I love him more than anything and love spending time with him, sometimes I need my space.

I can kind of sympathize with the kid. I remember hating when my parents would ask me to fetch something from the dungeon-like basement of my childhood. I was scared to death to go downstairs alone. Sometime I’d make my younger brother go with and then I would run as fast as I could back upstairs, leaving him in the dust to be eaten by anything that lurked in the shadows.

But I am pretty sure my fears were centered mostly around the basement. At least I would like to think that I gave my mom a break every once and a while and didn’t hover by her side ALL of the time.

I feel schizophrenic writing this post because last fall I wrote how my heart was breaking sending my oldest to school. And although I feel like I need some space, I still don’t want to send him to first grade this fall.

I honestly love being with him. But I also want to be able to not be with him for a few minutes here and there.

I’ve got to get to the bottom of what is making him feel so scared when alone. Then hopefully I can sometimes shake my shadow for a few moments of freedom.

We made such a mess at the ice cream parlor last week that I don’t know if my husband will ever take us back.

We let the boys choose their own flavors. Of course my oldest chose the brightest blue cotton candy ice cream I have ever seen. To top it off, he decided to get gumballs mixed in.

My first instinct was to change his mind. But then I remembered all the times my older sister and I ordered pink bubblegum ice cream from Baskin Robbins and the hours it took us to eat it because we would spit the fluorescent pink square-shaped gum cubes into a napkin. That way we could eat them later.

Maybe he would like doing that too.

Before I had even taken a lick of my own chocolate Reese’s cone I turned to see his chin dripping with bright blue goo as he struggled to eat both the gumballs and the ice cream.

He was torn.

I taught him the napkin trick but that only made it worse. I sat across from him, and watched him regurgitate diced up gumballs onto a napkin while leaning over and dipping his shirtsleeve deep into his ice cream bowl each time. He was a mess.

But all I could do was laugh. That made matters worse — for me.

The next thing I knew the bottom of my waffle cone had sprung a leak and I was dripping chocolate all the way down my front. I couldn’t even see past my pregnant belly to know where the drips were.

Once again I started laughing.  I snorted all over and spilled even worse than either of my boys. I had ice cream coming out my nose and mouth.

My husband had to bail me out with a big fist full of napkins.

A few more blue and chocolate shirt stains and a dozen napkins later, my 5-year-old and I were finally done.

I am sure my husband was relieved. I eat ice cream a lot, but I have never had a meltdown like that at the local parlor.  We made a big mess.

But I can’t wait to go again.

We lost our Lego Harry Potter. 

I was seriously upset.

Legos have become one of my favorite things to do with my boys. But during the three weeks that we couldn’t find the two-inch tall yellow-headed figured with the lightning-bolted forehead, messy hair and dark-rimmed glasses, I couldn’t even suggest we play with the building blocks because my 3-year-old would have a melt down.

It was horrible. But honestly, we would never have lost the little guy if my son didn’t have to take something with him every single place we go.

He took it in the van on the way to a local store and somehow he got lost on the way back into the house.

If I can’t break my children of the habit of bringing something with them everywhere we go, I think I am going to lose my mind.

Why do my children insist on taking something with them every single time we go somewhere?

Now I’m not talking about bringing a toy with us on vacation or taking something comforting to a scary place like the doctor or dentist’s office.  I’m talking about bringing something with when we run to the bank or grabbing a toy to tote with us as we stroll around the block.

Seriously? We are going to be gone for less than half an hour. Do they have to take something with?

No matter where we go or what we do, my children think they need to bring a toy.

I guess it’s partially my fault. When they were little and I felt bad for leaving them at a babysitter’s house I would bribe them into wanting to go by letting them bring a favorite toy. It helped with the separation anxiety. But now I think I have ruined my children.

I’ve got to stop them.

Luckily the school sent home a paper at the first of the year saying there were no toys allowed in class. That doesn’t mean we don’t have an occasional breakdown when my 5-year-old tries to sneak toys to Kindergarten.

He threw a whopper of a fit in the elementary school parking lot the day I caught him hiding his new laser gun in his pocket. There was kicking, screaming and biting.

But thanks to the no-toy rule at school at least my oldest has learned that he can’t take something with him ALL the time. Now, time to train the youngest.

Luckily we found Lego Harry in our Tupperware full of toy guns. I don’t know how he made it in there, but I was super happy to see him.

But I am tired of getting home from running errands empty handed and having to call each of the stores we ran to, asking them to check their lost-and-found stacks for our crap.

We have a couple of rules about taking toys. Like no weapon toys at church or the hospital. But I am seriously going to add a bunch of new ones. Starting with a no-Legos-outside-of-the-house rule.