Being Sara

Man, that's some cold mud!

My kids love their day care.  I can tell by the way they act when I drop them off, the way they act when I pick them up and the stories they (and their teachers) tell me about their antics during the day.

Yesterday Xander’s class had a “boat race”.  With some leftover Styrofoam they spent the previous day crafting and painting sail boats.  On Thursday their teacher filled a radio flyer wagon with water on the play ground and the “raced” the boats from one end to another.  Two at a time, using only their breath to push the sails.  How cute is that?

Of course, 3 and 4 year olds can’t be satisfied with just water when there is the potential to make mud so it wasn’t long before handfuls of sand landed in the wagon and the boat race quickly deteriorated to mud pies.  The kids in the class all did a pretty good job of keeping the mud in the wagon and not on themselves.  Parker though?  Parker wasn’t satisfied with just rolling mud in his hands.  Oh no.  He managed to climb IN TO the wagon to SIT in the mud.  Yep, that’s my son…

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I don’t have any good excuses for my lack of blogging (plenty of bad ones, but no good ones).  It’s been a busy week.  Work has been very busy.  Home has been pretty busy too.

Xander managed to give Parker his first black eye this week.  It happened at day care.  Whenever I see the day care number on the caller id I expect to hear either that someone is vomiting or that someone has broken a bone (I’ve never received the second call yet, but I’m expecting it).  I love that the first thing they tell me is “this is not an emergency” (phew!).  Apparently Xander and Parker were playing, and even though we *just* had the conversation about why it isn’t ok to pick up your brother the night before, Xander tried to pick Parker up.  Of course, Parker is catching up to Xander, so it’s tough for Xander to actually lift his little brother off the ground.  To account for this challenge, Xander tried to pick Parker up by grabbing him around the knees, which of course caused Parker to tumble forward and conveniently directly into the edge of a heat register.  The shiner is impressive.

According to the kindergarten readiness sheet day care sent home last week Xander needs to learn how to write his name legibly and draw a person with 5 parts (head, arms, legs, etc.) and then he’s pretty much G2G and since he has over a year to learn that stuff, he’s in good shape!  He’s been overly difficult in the eating department this week and we’re not sure why.

Xander has also decided he has a friend named “Vadin” (no clue how to actually spell that) who is “brown” and lives in Campton and it apparently a “big kid”.  I have no idea where he gets this stuff but it’s pretty cute.

We’ll hopefully have some fun this weekend (the weather is supposed to be nice) so I’ve got a few things planned – we’ll see what pans out…

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Mother’s Day is this Sunday (in case you’ve been hiding under a rock for 3 weeks and have missed the billions of internet, radio and television ads, as well as water cooler discussions).  In my world, I get wished a happy mother’s day throughout the weekend.  My day care is awesome about preparing the most wonderful mother’s day gifts any kid could ever dream of making – I look forward to them every year and often display them in my home or office.  My husband is wonderful about helping the kids pick out cards and decorate them, and I usually get some very pretty flowering tree or bush planted in my yard, which is wonderful.  Then we also visit our families to wish our mother’s a happy day.

So here is where my confusion comes in.  It’s “Mother’s Day”.  I’m a mother, so it must be “my day”.  And if it’s my day, then how come I don’t get to do what *I* want?  I’m a mother to wonderful 1 and 3 year old boys.  I also work full time.  Although time management experts would probably disagree with me, I manage to find approximately 3 hours each week all to myself (and I pay dearly for it the next morning when I say up too late to enjoy that time).   So what is it that I want for “my day”?  Peace and quiet.  I want a day where I get out of bed when I want to get out of bed.  Where I make tea for myself and no one else.  Where I can lounge in my bed or on my couch or on my porch and read or watch tv or do whatever I feel like doing.  I want a day of peace and quiet with no crying, no screeching, no yelling, no poopy diapers, no butt wiping, no cooking, no picking up, no cleaning.  I want a day where I don’t have to talk to a single soul if I don’t want to.  Where I can take a bath in my whirlpool tub if I want (in 3 months in my new house I’ve managed 2 baths – and one was in my bathing suit with the kids).  But, society tells me that as a mother, this is not what I “should” want.  I should want to spend the day with my smiling children and husband.  I should accept my macaroni necklace* with a smile and then go about packing everything up for our day-long trip through other mother’s houses.

So I can only conclude that this day is mis-named.  It’s not really “Mother’s Day”, it’s “Mother’s Celebration”.  It’s a day we celebrate and appreciate mothers, but it’s not their day.  It’s not a day for mothers to do what they want, because I bet if we took a poll 99% of mothers would say (in one form or another) that what they really want is a day off.

So, I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend of celebrating mothers, but remember, when you’re wishing them a “Happy mother’s day”, it’s not really “their” day.  I think next year perhaps we’ll celebrate grandparent’s day instead, and then give Zach and me the day off on Mother’s/Father’s day.

*it is important to note (especially for my day care providers reading this) that I have never received a macaroni necklace.  The artwork I do receive is always awesome and greatly appreciated

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As I think some of our good friends could attest to, kids at Parker’s age are on the verge of finally talking.  They want to talk.  They know what they want to say, but they just can’t find the words to communicate with the world.  And that is indescribably frustrating.  Parker takes this frustration out on the wrong toy you hand him when he flings it to the ground, or flinging himself to the ground when you just won’t do what he wants you to do.

“If only he could talk” Zach will sometimes say.  And we’ll wonder (and hope) that our son’s frustrations at the world will begin to abate as his ability to communicate improves.  He’s got a few words now.  He’s been able to say cat for ages.  Of course Mama and Dada.  He still hasn’t figured out any form of Xander or brother, but that will come.  He learned “uh oh” from his best friend at school and like to use that one regularly.

This week Parker has figured out “go” and uses it all the time – usually while someone is holding him – he’ll gesture in the direction he wants and say “go”.  Sometimes this works for him, and other times we tell him no (which drives him nuts).

He also can say “no” but usually when he says it, he means “yes” which can make for a rather confusing conversation if you’re not up on Parker lingo.  He’s getting better at communicating, even non-verbally.  These days he can walk up to you with a sippy cup and utter something entirely incomprehensible while holding up the cup and you say “oh, you’d like some more milk?” and take his cup, and now he won’t have a complete meltdown in the middle of the kitchen.  He’ll just smile up at you and wait (somewhat) patiently for you to fulfill his request.  Slowly but surely we’re making progress, and it’s making everyone in our house happier.

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