The Three Rules

When Jake walked in the door today, I had just been drilling the kids on the new Three Rules For Dinner so they could recite them to him:

One: No talking with your mouth full
Two: No eating with your fingers
Three: No sticking forks in your diaper

It's been a day.

Since today is Tuesday, it started as every fourth Tuesday starts-- with a moment of mourning for how far downhill the house has gone just a week after its monthly cleaning. I then attempted to marshal some energy--Kay, after teasing me with a few days of sleeping through the night back when she was just three or four months old, is not sleeping through the night. It doesn't help that it's winter--in the middle of the cold dark night when one hardly wants to budge from under the covers oneself, there is something maternally primal about cuddling an infant close in a warm bed, protecting her from the harsh cold (though if a sixty-three degree bedroom can be considered harsh weather conditions by one's primal instincts, evolution is certainly heading in a wimpy direction.) So I was indulging in letting her sleep in bed next to me when she woke to nurse in the night--until she started to teethe. There is something primal about protecting one's body parts from sharp little infant teeth, too, you see.

So, lacking any energy or brain cells but also lacking a nanny or a school to send my first and fourth grader to, I proceeded with serving breakfast ("Bot, make your own oatmeal"), dressing and potty training ("OK Timmy, I've got your shirt and pants, you bring your penis and let's go to the bathroom"), laundry ("Alex, find me _Understood Betsy_ while I put this laundry in the washer,") reading ("Alex, where is Molly? And what's Betsy going to do? Good-- remember, if you can't tell me what's going on when I ask you, you are barred from Legos till dinner."), writing ("Alex, keep writing. Alex, keep writing. Alex, write the next letter without stopping-- withOUT stopping!"), and then, when three phone calls came in concerning the parent advocacy group I help head in our school district, I proceeded with changing and nursing K and confiscating all writing and drawing utensils from Timmy (since he will scribble on anything that isn't paper but especially favors permanent surfaces like tables, walls and floors) while talking on the phone. Then, remembering that it was Tuesday, which meant Messy Artist, which meant a chunk of the afternoon taken away, which meant this only mildly school-productive morning was even more irritating because we didn't have time to make up for it in the afternoon, it was now time for prepping lunch and scolding ("OK, back to school next week if you guys can't stop complaining whenever you have to write something or manage to stay on task when I have to walk away--Alex, are you listening? So show me you can finish that sentence...ALEX, I'm still sitting right here and you're still stopping! Alex, if you don't finish that sentence in the next five minutes there will be no Legos for the rest of the--wow, I'm impressed you can write that neatly when you write that fast, see, if you can do that when TIMOTHY JACOB NO MARKERS ON DOORS!" I do do positive reinforcement, really, but not on days when it took Alex 45 minutes to write one sentence but Timmy only 45 seconds to put pink marker on the glass door to the playroom and black pen on the dining room table in between dispersing crumbled green playdough to the four corners of the first floor.)

Off we went to Messy Artist, where Dunc's teacher agreed to give Timmy a test run for an hour. I took K out for a walk, going uphill to go by the duck pond, until it abruptly began to rain--and me with no hood, though K was covered well. Quickly went back downhill, and it stopped raining. In the meantime, Liam called because he'd arrived home from his midterms at noon and found no one home, and being the wonderful mom I am, I told him that since he'd just finished two exams, he could play Xbox once he had lunch since there were no little kids in the house--he had a little over an hour. In my house. Alone. And here I had paid a TERRIFICALLY HIGH amount, according to one grandma, just so I could walk in the rain with a baby. *sigh*

Only when we arrived home, Richard presented Liam with what he thought would be an appreciated gesture--Bot had found Liam's Buckyballs on the dining room floor this morning and picked them up to keep them away from Timmy. Buckyballs are little silver natural magnets, pretty darn strong little magnetic balls sold, of course, in the ThinkGeek catalog--Liam got them as a Christmas gift from a friend. Within seconds of Bot handing them over, I heard Liam grousing because six were missing and he wanted someone to grumble at over it. Now, there are 216 balls in a set of Buckyballs, and Liam was acting like his world had ended over six. In the meantime, I'm thinking, "There are six little magnetic balls likely on my floor, with a newly-crawling baby in the house."

So I called Liam over: "Liam T, there are six little magnetic balls likely on my floor, with a newly-crawling baby in the house. Forget trying to find out who is to blame for the loss of your Buckyballs and FIND them."

"But I thought I left them upstairs, and--"

"Clearly, you did not. They were downstairs."

"But I was SURE--"

"Liam, no one went up on the third floor, took them, then brought them down here and lost six. You left them downstairs, and chances are the person responsible for them ending up on the floor is two years old and you won't get any meaningful information from him. But I need to know they aren't on the floor right now, so go LOOK. And remember to check anything metallic they might be sticking to." When he groaned, I pointed out, rather pointedly, that he had just had two hours of no studying and hanging out in my house alone which happens to me almost, um, NEVER, so the loss of six little magnet balls out of a few dozens is not cause to claim a bad day and groan about it.

Then I got another phone call, just as G's bus was pulling up, so I got to cut the phone call short due to the bus' arrival but then had to deal with the fact that G had once again picked at his fingernails until they were bleeding. While going to clean up his hands, I got a call about carpooling for Bot and a friend--the other mom had a sleeping younger child, and since I had Liam and Cory home and the drive was literally two minutes down the road, I could drive there without taking all the kids.

While explaining over the phone upstairs (while pouring peroxide over G's fingers) that I'd be there in ten minutes to pick up Bot's buddy, however, Liam had concluded that his missing six Buckyballs MUST be behind the piano. (Subsequent debriefing revealed that Liam came to this conclusion not because he remembered leaving the balls there, but because he'd left OTHER items on the piano last night. To some extent this made sense, because as he pointed out, since he didn't remember leaving the balls downstairs at all, the fact that he didn't remember leaving them on the piano doesn't mean he didn't. Of course, it also didn't exclude anywhere else downstairs.) How best to get little magnetic balls that had fallen behind a piano? By making a string with the other 210 and hanging it down behind the piano so the hypothetically lost Buckyballs would be attracted to their brethren and then hauled to safety.

Not a bad plan, actually. Of course, he was hanging a string of magnets blindly down behind the piano with no clue what might be down there. And what was behind the piano?

An outlet with no outlet cover.

By the time I have come downstairs to explain to Liam that I was taking K and G with me to drive Bot and he had to keep the rest of his siblings alive for ten minutes, the piano was pulled out from the wall so that Liam could confirm that two Buckyballs had slid into the outlet where they could not be retrieved without probable electrocution and I could see that there were plenty miscellaneous items that had fallen behind the piano that were affected only by gravitational forces. I was quickly filled in on the situation, and as I was just trying to figure out if Liam had come close to being electrocuted and how high the "Oh. My. God." factor should be here, Liam melodramatically declared,"That's EIGHT missing now! I'm going to need a new set!"

Now, don't ask me why this, of all things, should have driven me nuts, but between time pressure for the carpool, not getting enough school done, not being able to get G to stop biting or picking at his fingers after many months, not being able to get the phone to stop ringing, and not being able to control the rain, I guess Liam's melodrama seemed like something I could actually control. Maybe.

"REALLY?!?! No, you do not NEED anything of the sort! You can LOOK for the six that were lost, we can shut off the circuit and get out, maybe, the two that are in the wall, but," and here I thought I could throw my closing comment out as I left to carpool and be done, "since you survived up until this past Christmas without Buckyballs, clearly you don't NEED them."

But Liam couldn't help himself from speaking. "Well, I didn't KNOW about them before Christmas, but now that I DO--"

"EXCUSE ME?" Liam turned around with a face that clearly showed that he knew he'd stepped in it. "Are you seriously contending that as of this past Christmas, when you got the Buckyballs, that they became a *necessity*? Do you really mean to say that you NEED a bunch of little magnets, and not just a bunch, but AT LEAST TWO HUNDRED OF THEM?"

"Well, I think it's 208 or 216, but, um, well..."

"There's no 'Um, well.' The answer is either, 'No, Mom, I don't actually need Buckyballs to survive' or it's 'Yes, I do need them to survive.' "

"Wull, I GUESS--"

"Guess? Shall we go through everything in your room so I can demonstrate to you just which things are truly NEEDED and which are NOT? Do you not understand what 'need' means or do we NEED to do that?"

"No, we don't."

"Clearly, you are overreacting. Clearly, so am I, but I do think that might not have happened if you had managed to not let your world, and mine in the process, get turned upside down because of EIGHT TINY MAGNETS. I don't want any more attempted inquisitions of any more of my children except Timmy--because you deserve the insanity that is trying to get an answer out of Timmy--about these Buckyballs. Bot kept the ones he found safe, you should thank him for that, you should sweep up all that stuff behind the piano and then push the piano BACK. You WILL NOT stomp, complain, yell, or otherwise carry on while I am gone because I WILL know about it. And when *I* decide Dad has nothing better he needs to do, we will tend to the magnets in the wall--until then, I do not want to HEAR about Buckyballs!"

"OK."

"Good." I glared at him, he frowned back, but it was fairly respectful frowning, so I took a deep breath and said, "I am going to leave now, and I will return calm, and I will find you calm, and this will be over." Always an optimist,I am. I left, with the remaining 208 Buckyballs in my pocket. And you know, once you start playing with them, they are pretty darn neat and addicting.

When I explained to Bot's buddy's mom that there were magnets in my wall, she burst out laughing, and then I realized that it really was funny but I could see Liam's frustration, too, because after all, who would have guessed there was a hole in the wall to suck up magnets? And he no doubt felt dumb that his idea wasn't as smart as he thought it was and then I came along and chewed him out. Poor kid...so I went home and made nice with him. If I could just remember what it was like to be 15 BEFORE I felt the frustration of being 38, he and I would be best friends. (I have SO much more empathy for my parents of 25 years ago now!)

So Liam and I were on good terms by the time Bot got dropped back off, and good thing, too, because Timmy had not napped and was being a total bear to all of us. When i told him that no, it was not time for chocolate chips, and no, he could not have the pasta yet because it was still cooking, and no, he could NOT write on the counter (at this point, all writing instruments were under lock and key, so where he kept finding them I don't know) and no, he could not whack Duncan with a dinosaur and call it "playing Star Wars," he ended up just howling in time out while I turned to Bot and Liam and actually said, hoping for some sort of humorous uplift, "Tell me, did we need a sixth boy? Is there something redeeming about Timmy right now that makes having a seventh kid worth it?"

Liam grinned, but Bot pretended to look thoughtful and said, "Nnnnnno, not that I can think of. Maybe when he was small and cute, but no, nothing now."

I looked at Liam. "You've got to have SOMETHING you can think of, right? I mean, he's our Timmy, it was worth having him for some reason--" A look at howling Timmy kicking the floor--"Right?"

Liam looked at me, "Well, I know there MUST be, but....Umm...Ummm..." We stared at him and thought.

"Well, when in doubt, look to Social Security. He'll still be paying taxes when you're getting benefits, right? There you go. He's worth it because in theory, he will help to pay for your Social Security."

The boys didn't look too sure--and i don't blame them, because at that moment Tim hardly looked like a future wage-earner or responsible taxpayer--but it was time for dinner, which is when Tim turned happy.

Only he was so happy that he was just spastic at the table, and while managing grace and the serving of the pasta while Tim was being loud and silly and goofy and just waaaaayyyyy too Timmish, the phone started ringing. I decided to ignore it, figuring it was just Jake telling what train he was or wasn't taking or a telemarketer, only it KEPT ringing, so Cory ran to get it as I barked at Tim, who was pounding his fork tines-down on the table over the exciting Parmesan cheese, and looked at the caller ID. It was in fact Jake. So I answered the phone.

"TIM-othy JA-cob. STOP pounding the TA-ble! WHAT?!? WHY did you have to call me TWICE? Don't you know I'm not answering the phone because Timmy is destroying our table?"

"But I only called once," poor Jake said. This was not the phone call he intended.

"It rang eight or more times! That has to be more than one attempted call, right?"

"Well, but, I only called once--to tell you I'm at Mountain Station but I don't need a ride." See, Mountain Station is only a 10 minute walk from us, closer than South Orange where Jake usually gets off because most rush-hour Midtown Direct trains don't stop at Mountain.

"Good, because a ride is not exactly what I was ready to give you, and why are you at Mountain, anyway? Bot, hand this plate down to Cory, and Liam, get Timmy his water before he drowns us all."

"I'm here because..,.this is closer, and the train stopped here." I was starting to figure out that Jake had come home a train earlier than his usual earliest, and was playing coy about it.

"Wait, but it was only five a little while ago, did you come home early?"

This is the part Jake was waiting for, the part when I melt with unexpected joy and gratitude because he's come home EARLY. You could hear his grin over the phone.

"Well, yes, I di--"

"TIMMY! GET THAT FORK *OUT* OF YOUR DIAPER!" All the kids looked at Tim, who was spinning around with the fork sticking tines-out, thank goodness, from the back of his diaper like a tail. Everyone laughed, and I told Jake, "It's been a day. Not all a bad day, mind you, but certainly a day, and I should get off the phone.

"OK, well, try to keep it not all bad until I get there, then." I unceremoniously hung up, got Tim in his seat, and proceeded to restore order by making each kid recite the Three Rules before i would hand over his or her plate. When it was Bot's turn to say, "No sticking forks in your diaper!" Cory got an evil grin on her face and said, "She didn't say anything about knives!"

"Corinne Elizabeth, if any of your little brothers now sticks a knife in his diaper or underwear, ever, you will be stuck accompanying me to the ER, even if I have to stop and pick you up from school on the way or wake you in the middle of the night!" So we were all laughing by the time Jake walked in.

"OK, guys, what are the Three Rules?"

Bot's Sense of Math

I don't know how we got on the topic, but Bot told me how he and Cory had been talking about the time when Bot was in second grade and the school was rehearsing for the big Christmas concert. They were singing the Allelujah Chorus or whatever and Bot was basically not singing much at all, basically giving a half-hearted "Ah" once in a while, and since he was standing right by his teacher she caught on and instructed him during a pause between run-throughs, "Richard, you have to SING."

So Bot promptly burst out by himself, "AHHH! Lay LEW. YAH! AHHH! Lay-lew. YAH!" I pointed out that clearly his problem was not fear of having his singing heard if he could do that solo in front of everyone, and asked if Mrs. C had laughed at him. He said no, she had given him the "One more time and I'm giving you a white slip!" warning--and rightly so, given that this was a full-primary-department rehearsal and some maintaining of order was necessary.

But Cory had pointed out that if Mrs. K had heard that, she would have been rolling on the floor, which got us talking about when he DID get Mrs. K to laugh.

Mrs. K was Cory and then Bot's third grade teacher, and she was THE teacher at Aquinas--she was funny, unpredictable, enthusiastic, demanding, motivating, respected and VERY well-loved. And she passed away last year part-way through Bot's year with her, so the kids are still fond of reminiscing about her.

He began telling me a story about a time when she was doing her "Sister Jeannette" thing (her first name was Jeannette) in which she acted like a stereotypical old-fashioned nun, smacking her ruler on her desk and barking out multiplication facts, expecting immediate answers.

So when she smacked her ruler down and barked, "Seven time nine IS?"

Bot responded immediately, "Y plus 26!" and she howled.

Who Needs Fancy Kick Toys?

Go to Toys R Us and you will no shortage of toys that are dedicated to, or include in part the capability to "stimulate gross motor development" by giving the baby something to kick. We once had one such device that tied onto the side of the crib and featured huge piano keys that played different notes when the child kicked them (it could also be laid flat for the child to smack at or step on.) The colors and sounds were supposed to elicit and reinforce the act of kicking--and when you think about it, what every new parent needs is for the child they have to change up to a dozen times a day to be really good at kicking his legs while on his back in diaper changing position, right?

When we had this toy, it was one of Liam's ten toys--I swear, all the toys Liam had to play with his first year fit into one 18-inch wide shelf area in the entertainment center, plus the swing, walker and the piano-keys-kick-encourager. And the kid had little or no interest in the piano keys--what I'm supposed to take away from that is that he might have been a super athlete in some sport if I'd encouraged this activity, but I just remember that he was an angel to change except that he tended to pee when his diaper was opened. (Someone should come up with a musical toy that encourages parental dryness during diaper changes in infancy. Maybe an air horn sounded just before the diaper is opened that shocks the child into voiding immediately into the diaper and then lying still in shock during the changing process. What? What did I say?) Now we have lots more baby and other toys accumulated over the years and the kids play with approximately 3682 of them--all of which are Legos.

I can't say the subsequent babies are any more interested in the various toys than LT was--the best things are still the swing, the walker, and the silicone spatula. But I admit, it's hard to look at all those bulky baby toys and not be tempted. "Oh, it's so colorful, and maybe she'll grow up to be a lying-down-on-her-back soccer star!" I mean, once in a while a toy catches their interest and pays off--Duncan and Tim as infants like the playmat with the arches from which cute toys hung to give them something to look up at until they figured out how to roll over about ten minutes later, for example. K is now placed on that mat, without the arches, in the kitchen because it's small enough to fit in the kitchen and gives her some traction for getting up on all fours, something that's tough to do on a smooth floor when one is covered in winter baby clothes with no exposed knees or feet to use as non-skid surfaces.

It was while on that mat, flipping all around, that she found her own excellent kick-encourager. It doesn't play music, it isn't colorful, it just moves out and snaps back. It's the cat door to the basement. (Picture below--the blur in her left hand is the trusty spatula.) She hit it accidentally, and has been kicking and kicking and kicking it in over and over. All I need to do is start tossing a mini-soccer ball at the door from the other side and her athletic training is begun. Her other favorite activity during her kitchen floor time this morning has been peeling off the paper tape on a box in the corner, just out of sight in the picture--this not only encourages fine motor skills with her hands but also social interaction with her mother, as I have to get up every 1.3 minutes to take away the bit she peeled during the 1.73 seconds it takes her to realize it's free, look at it, and starts to move it toward her mouth, and do it while being so cheerfully distracting that she isn't pissed that I'm taking something out of her hands. (Which begs the question, which one of us is being trained here?) One might argue that I should have her play with something that is not an ingestion or choking hazard, but all that pretty plastic stuff is just not as challenging or enticing as a brown box with paper tape, and I DO want her to be a genius, right?