Pigpen

I actually, theoretically, have a few free minutes to write this morning while M is playing and everyone else is sleeping. Yet where to start? I need to be FAIR to all my kids. Hmm, perhaps it is time for an update on each kiddo. Since M was the first one up this morning (as he nearly always is), he gets to go first.

His current nickname is Pigpen. The child is ALWAYS dirty. This has a couple of causes. The first is that our floors are always dirty. We have two large, hairy dogs, and we live in a warm climate. They are always shedding. I could easily sweep every day. Probably more. At our old house we had vinyl floors in the bathrooms. Dog fur sticks to vinyl. Really sticks. There would be times in that I would finally get all the dog fur swept off the bathroom floors, leave the room to get the mop, and come back to discover a new layer of dog fur had settled on the floors. Given that I am clearly not the Martha Stewart of cleaning, there is always dog hair on the floor. Living on the coast, rather than having dirt for soil, we have black sand. Have you ever looked at a particle of black sand? They are really little. Really, really little. And they cling to everything. We try to be good and always take our shoes off at the door, but that isn't always possible when we are outside with the kids and need to run in to get something. And the dogs track it in. We clean their paws, but Pru always wants to go lay in the nice, cool sand in the shade, and so it clings to her fur. So despite cleaning the floors at least once a week, there is always a fine layer of fur and sand on the floor.

And Pigpen has is own special way of crawling. He worms around the house on his belly, using his arms in a swimming motion. He rarely pushes up on all forms. It is the perfect recipe for a messy baby.

Last Friday I CLEANED the floors. They looked good. Seriously! Then on Saturday morning, Pru decided to roll on the ground outside. When she came in, she left a trail of sand. Thankfully, I noticed it while all the kids were eating breakfast, so I quickly swept it up. But that didn't stop Pigpen. No, he managed to find the areas that I had somehow missed (and you would think that I would find most of the black sand on white tile in broad daylight). Before I could put him down for his morning nap, he had to have an emergency bath. The child looked like he had just swept a chimney with the front of his body. The front of him was covered in black from head to toe. The back, aside from his bottom, was miraculously clean.

But Pigpen does do more than crawl around getting dirty. He loves to sit and play, and he is very content to play independently as long as he knows where Jeff or I am. His favorite place to play, of course, is his big sis's room since it has nice soft carpeting to crawl on and is filled to the brim with choking hazards. We now close the door to her room whenever she is not in it since every time we put him down he heads straight to her room.

Baths are one of his favorite activities. All I have to do is start running the water in the bathtub, and he will come race-worming through the house in an effort to be the first to take a bath. He usually wins since his sis is not a fan of the all-sibling baths and is brother isn't at his best around bath time. One of his favorite games (and mine) is played most nights while undressing him. As I take off his shirt or onesie, he grabs it and starts playing peek-a-boo. He will pull it over his face when I ask where he is, and then he quickly pulls it up and grins when I see peek-a-boo. This came never gets old, at least for me. He is probably completely sick of it.

He is great in the tub too. He crawls around a little, but having wiped out twice, he is a smart little guy and crawls only to reach toys and knows to keep his head high above the water. He mostly sits and plays or watches his sis as she "cooks" or acts out crazy adventures in the tub.

M remains the most scheduled of our children. He takes two naps a day, at prescribed times, and always goes to bed between 7:30 - 8:00. Always. We have learned not to push him. The same is true for dinner when he eats no later than 5:45 each night. We do NOT serve him food at 5:46. It is too late! There will be a price to pay for such foolishness.

As much as I love his peek-a-boo, the most amusing fact about Pigpen has to be that he thinks he is a dog. While L wants to be just like R, we are almost certain M aspires to be a dog. He spends his time worming around looking for crumbs on the floor, and he can spot a fallen Cheerio or frozen pea from 10' away. (Not an easy trick if you have ever held your head six inches off the floor and tried to look for things.) M always comes when called, and if he had a tail, we know it would be wagging. He also loves to chew on rugs and shoes. We cannot leave shoes on the floor. Last weekend my brother and his wife were in town, and M was in heaven. With guests around, there were always shoes to chew. Hopefully, he will outgrow this, and if we catch him trying to chase his tail, we'll know he's gone too far.

Abandonment

Okay, so I know I've abandoned all of you by not writing for two weeks. (And I know there is at least someone reading this. My fabulous friend Stacy admitted to it. Crazy girl, but it totally made my day, and for that, she is my Number One Fan!)

As always, long gaps without writing mean lots of great things have been happening preventing me from taking the time to write. But the new plan (I seem to have a new plan every 10 minutes these days) is to take home my 'puter and start writing at night. I actually did that last night but didn't get very far with my writing. Here's hoping for a better night for writing tonight. In the meantime, here's a quick R story.

In one of R's favorite Baby Blues comics, Wanda, the mom, is in the bathroom with the kids. Zoe is in the tub, and Wanda is holding baby Hammie in her lap and trimming his nails. She accidentally cuts his finger with the nail clippers, and he starts crying. Of course Wanda starts crying too and laments, "I'm a terrible mom!" (We all know that feeling!) We haven't read that comic in awhile, but R has a freakishly good memory. Two Saturdays ago R and I were in the car in the drive-thru at Chick-Fil-A. I placed our order, but it wasn't until I got to the window that I remembered to order a sandwich for Jeff who was at home with the boys. Jeff's mom was with us, and I joked to her that I was a terrible wife. As we were driving home, R says in all seriousness, "Momma, you are a terrible mommy!" I nearly burst out laughing. As I struggled to compose myself, she went on to recite the comic and compare it to my near-disaster. Our little English major conducted a very thorough analysis.

Happy New Year!

My year always starts in late August/early September. I spent two years in the real world trying to operate with a year that starts in January. I was miserable. I had previously spent my entire life working on a school year. It worked for me. I saw no reason to change. So I was very happy when I returned to the safety of operating in school years. I plan to stay on this schedule for a long time.

That being said, today is the first day of a new year. For the first time ever, the school year is no longer all about me. It doesn't start on my first day of class as either student, teacher, or administrator. The torch has been passed down, and the new year really begins on the petite princess's first day of preschool.

Getting ready for preschool has been an adventure. It started with clothes shopping. I've never really cared how I dressed any of the kids, but suddenly I panicked. I didn't want R to be The Weird Kid at school, so we went shopping. But she's so teeny! At 3, she is just starting to wear size 24 months/2T clothes. This didn't seem like a problem until we went school clothes shopping. Shirts in those sizes sometimes still have snaps at the neck. Snaps at the neck are for babies! Not to mention have the shirts we found were onesies, and those just don't work for potty training kids. And everything in the stores is long sleeve. Do the stores not know that our high temperatures are in the 70s and 80s most days until Christmas? Do they want her to roast? She is too young to suffer in the name of fashion! Finding pants that fit was no easy task either. Pants in her size are designed for big ol' diaper-covered bums. But R wears pull-ups or panties. Saggy butt has never been a very fashionable look. Thank goodness for the return of leggings!

R has a study guide for every occasion, and she read and reread Elmo Goes to School in an effort to get ready for today. Unfortunately, last Friday we found out that at her school backpacks are banned and the kids are required to use tote bags (so that all ages can get stuff out and put it in by themselves). She was not happy about that change. At all. Not only does Elmo have a backpack, but she does too, and she packed hers for school weeks ago. But, last Friday she and I went shopping and get her a tote bag, some Strawberry Shortcake fabric, and lots of pink puffy paint. On Sunday she went crazy decorating her new bag which she proudly carried today. She even requested that I write her name "the real way" using both upper and lower case letters, rather than in all capitals.

There were a couple of other deviations from the book that threw her. One was the lack of school busses. She REALLY wants to ride a bus to school. We talked about her school not having enough kids for busses. She was also devastated that she was going to have two teachers in her room. Elmo only has one. She was really hung up on this. Who knew it would be so dramatic? But we discussed "same" and "different" and I think she was okay with it.

Dropping R off at school this morning was almost non-eventful. Because she is not yet fully potty trained, and because she isn't the most social, we switched her to the two-year-old class which is a teensy class with 4 students. We were able to meet 2 of the other kids from her class at the open house last Friday. They arrived at school the same time we did this morning. When they got to their classroom, each found something to do and were completely engrossed in their activities. Not one of them even cared about saying goodbye to their parents.

I haven't gotten all the details yet, but it must've been a good first morning at school. From what I hear, one girl cried (probably the fourth child who hadn't been there yet). For snack they had bananas, the one food on earth R doesn't eat, and Goldfish crackers, which thankfully she loves. She also managed to hit the little boy in her class during dodge ball. (Thankfully she got her father's athletic abilties and not mine.) It sounds like a successful day and a great start to a new year.