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?"

Concerns about Cory's Confidence

So, I took Cory to her 11-yr-old well-child. Yes, she's 11.5 and her birthday is in April, but since the old pediatrician's office was convinced that all insurance companies would only cover well-child visits if it was at least 12 months after the last one (which may have been true for our insurance, who knows) and since the same pediatrician's office was always booked into the next month or beyond, and also in part because maybe the mom in question (that would be me) wouldn't always be thinking eight weeks in advance for well-child visits and would be calling just before or after the anniversary of her last check-up, over a decade or so the physical got pushed later and later in the year. Then it got pushed back two extra weeks because after I arranged for Grandpa to come down on a Tuesday to watch the other kids so I could go and pick her up from school at 2:40 to make a 3:00 appointment which would get done in time to pick up Liam from jazz ensemble practice (his school is conveniently located close to the doctor's office) and have us home by 4ish, all very efficient, Cory called me while I stood in the parking lot waiting for her to come out of school to tell me she had forgotten I was picking her up and was on her bus heading home, oops. So, after a $50 no-show fee and a quick reschedule, we got Cory in on a Monday at 3pm--which is a kind of stinky day since my dad babysits my niece on Monday and everyone else in the world has to pick up their own kids from schools at that time, BUT at least G has an after school program so I would not have to worry about him getting off the bus while I took everyone else along to the doctor.

Then I did my once-monthly glance at Facebook and saw a friend list her status as "Trying to find childcare for a not-very-sick toddler so I can make a meeting tomorrow morning. He doesn't have a fever, but these germophobic days I might bother other moms taking a coughing kid in to preschool..." I figured that this could be either a plea for assurances that a coughing kid could go to preschool or a subtle fish for someone who might take her toddler during this meeting, and so I called to offer to watch the little one the next morning if Bot, Alex and Dunc could hang at their house while I took Cory to the doc's. It was a deal, especially since her husband was working from home that day and--he could go grab her kids from school while she let our boys hang out and play Legos. (Someone ELSE'S Legos are even BETTER than the regular kind!)

So, this is a long way of getting to the part about how I ended up in the pediatrician's office with just Cory, Timmy, and Kayleigh (on a Monday--which, stinky day as it is logistically it worked out pretty well and is totally irrelevant to the story.) All the doctors in this practice ask the same standard questions at well-child visits to check on the social/emotional well-being of the kids--since my kids only go to a physical once a year (or so) and we've only been with this practice for two years, they aren't so familiar with these questions (though one mom times six verbal-well-child's a year means *I* am very familiar with these questions) and so are either taken aback or take way too much time to answer accurately and thoroughly when the purpose could be served with a simpler, shorter answer. For example, when they ask, "How are you doing in school?" a simple, "Fine, my grades are good" would suffice, but Liam might answer, "Well, let's see, in Biology I'm doing fine, really fine! But I'm not doing so well in World History--I mean, I'm not failing, but I did miss a homework and so that pulled my grade below a 90 and so my mom won't let me watch TV or use my computer for games and stuff-- they have to let me use it at least somewhat because my school is laptop-based and I need to either email in my assignments or use the internet for research or use Edline to look up my assignments and grades--but they won't let me play games on my computer or watch TV until I get the grade back up to a 90 for the quarter, which will be easy since it's early in the quarter, y'know, so there aren't many grades yet so the 97 I just got on today's test will pull that way up easily, I just need my teacher to post it online so my parents can confirm it...So, that's Bio and World History, what's left? Um, Latin--"

"Well, that's OK, it sounds like you're doing fine as long as you remember your homework. What's your favorite subject?"

"Oh, my favorite? Hmm, well, that's kind of a toss up between geometry, religion, and biology. I'd have to really think about that, because actually I like World History a lot, too--"

"That's fine, you like more than one subject--great! Do you take part in activities at school, too?"

"Yeah, I do the jazz ensemble--only not many people are showing up for that and it would be really great if we could get a drummer to come consistently--and Ultimate, though that's not through school because we don't HAVE an Ultimate Frisbee team at my school, but I'm hoping to start one in the spring. I play with the team in South Orange, you know, Columbia High School? Then I have Boy Scouts, though that's ALSO not through school, that's in my town, and I still do origami--I was probably doing that last year when I had my last physical, too--"

"Good, you seem to be very well-rounded! And you have a good group of friends?" At this point I could see that she's shifted to a more yes-no slant to her questions in the hopes that Liam would give a short answer, so when he takes a deep breath and starts to explain about his school friends, his West Orange friends, his friends who are not from West Orange OR school, etc I finally have pity on the woman and simply say, "Liam, she just wants to know if you have friends, not who they all are."

"OH! Yeah, uh, I have friends." And so on.

#

Cory was a bit more astute at getting the purpose of the questions, but she had me in stitches anyway--only unlike Liam, she set out to entertain. She was all ham that day. It started innocently enough.

"What school do you go to?"

"Aquinas Academy--see?" as she points to the name on her gym sweats.

"Oh, that's in Livingston, right? Do you like it there?"

"Oh yeah, I love it there! It's great." Little shrug, merely a statement of fact.

"Good! And do you have a favorite subject?"

An almost airy, "Eh. I like them all, I guess."

"And how are your grades? You're doing OK?"

"Oh, yeah, yeah, they're all OK." Little wave of her hand to brush off such silly concerns.

"And are you in any activities?"

At this one Cory glanced over at me as I wiggled Timmy on to one leg while holding K on the other because I'd given a little snort. "She certainly IS!" I groaned. Cory grinned, and then looked at the politely perplexed doctor and said, "She has to drive me everywhere. I'm in basketball, and band, and I take piano, and I'm in the principal's council, and Student Council, and Girl Scouts, and Builder's Club--"

"What's that?"

"Oh, Builders Club? That's like a service organization in our school."

"Wow, so you're in a lot of things, and you're doing well in school, I'm guessing you have plenty of friends...?"

I answered, "Yes, she's fine there, too."

And Cory kind of waved her hand and shook her head as she declared matter-of-factly, "Oh, yeah, everyone likes me, I'm awesome."

Totally straight face--the doctor turned and looked at me, uncertain whether Cory was serious or joking or what.

"As you can see, self-esteem is not a problem with her." I gave a wry grin, and the doc grinned back, and then Cory decided to wrap up her act.

"Oh, YEAH, my self-esteem is GRRRREAT! NO problems there." She was able to hold the straight face for about five more seconds, and then finally broke into a smile that revealed that she knew just how much of a cocky little ham she was being.

Shhhh! Don't Tell Liam, I'm Saying This...

I can't be all bad if my teen is voluntarily calling me from camp, right?

This summer has Liam's first two experiences with sleep-away camp stuff that doesn't involve being at Kandy's or my mom's. Boy Scout Camp was the first, and since he's been with these boys and their dads for several years now and was going with Nick, whom he's known since he was 2, and Nick's dad and little brothers, this was not exactly a hard one. And I pretty much knew that they weren't going to be using their phones much, I didn't expect to get calls. But I did get a call, because Liam sliced his finger and needed stitches, so I got to talk to him twice and of course, when I said "I love you" he gave me the usual, "Yeah, OK." See, there were other people around. At least, I hoped that was the reason. Whenever I get him on his cell, like when he calls to say he made it to his friend's house, I close with an "I love you" and never says it back, but there's almost always people around him, right? Surely that's the reason?

Then he went off to Ultimate Frisbee camp. Here again he was going with a group of boys he'd played Ultimate with for the past three years, but it was a bigger camp, the kids were usually grouped in the dorms to be in geographically diverse groups so they'd meet new people, and believe it or not, we worried that Liam might not be in shape enough for it. Yes, I know, you're thinking "In shape for FRISBEE?" but I'm telling you, watch a game and you'll see that it's as much running as soccer, if not more so. The camp information explicitly states that campers should arrive in good shape and should NOT expect camp to be a getting-in-shape experience--otherwise, the camper will be too tired to fully enjoy and benefit from the camp. So I was not nervous, but was a bit more on edge than I was with Scouts, even though Frisbees have no sharp edges like the knives they use as Boy Scouts.

TO make things even more interesting, we didn't drive him up to Amherst--he went up with his friend Adam and family, and we're doing pick-up. I sent him off all packed up and honestly, once I was convinced he wasn't lacking anything important and Jake would get him to Adam's on time, didn't give it another thought. So Sunday my friend Karen, Adam's mom, called and asked, "I was just calling to let you know how things were up there--or did you hear already from Liam?"

This was when I felt like a bad mom....Liam had his phone, but I hadn't explicitly told him to call and check in. Liam is also blissfully un-addicted to his phone--he doesn't carry it around with him, and unless he's walking to his friend's house or out somewhere that I've required cell phone check-ins, he wouldn't notice a call on it because it's likely to not be in the same room with him. Karen had talked about alllllll the information she'd gotten from both her boys while at jazz camp the week before as well--she had a rule that if she texted them, they had to answer back or she'd start calling, so her oldest would send back one-syllable responses and she'd ask for more detail and he'd ask her to please stop texting him and she'd explain, as one often has to with boys, that if he gave her the information she was asking about in a more thorough way, she wouldn't have to keep asking questions...I admit, the image of a teen being interrupted by a text from Mom doesn't seem conducive to eager communication, but then, it's less intrusive than a phone call. Liam had long ago earned the privilege of a texting plan, but I'd never gotten around to adding it and he hadn't asked, so I figured, "Great, delay the addiction until he remembers and asks us to add it!"

Only now I had my son in Amherst and me in NJ and I was getting my info second- or third-hand from Karen or through Karen from her son because I hadn't told him to call and didn't properly get him attached to his phone so that I was likely to get calls or texts from him. I could call him and hope to get him, but just then I was feeling a bit lonely that my son probably wouldn't think to call home himself. Karen seemed to have minute-by-minute updates on what was going on--I had sent my son off on Friday and here it was Sunday and I hadn't thought to stress about the details of exactly what he was doing--he was at a well-supervised camp, right? I knew he'd be playing frisbee and they'd feed him--but now I was feeling like a pretty lame, bad, un-missed mom.

So imagine our shock when the phone rang at 10:15pm that night, and it was our eldest, calling us from his dorm room single ("Adam's mom says the dorm rooms are kind of old and not that great?" "Eh, they're fine--lots better than the tent at Camp Wakpominee, that's for sure!") to use the last remaining minutes before curfew to tell us about his day. Awwwww....

And when it was time to get off the phone, I said the usual, "I love you." And, sitting alone in his single with no one around to hear, he did not hesitate at all to say, "I love you, too, Mom. Good night!" And he's called every night before bed. I'm a happy mommy.