Holding Still

Nice brefts

The guys' vocabulary is developing rapidly and the way they juxtapose words can be pretty hilarious. Also when they choose to use certain words. For example a few weeks back when Lire was going to take his nap, he was being especially affectionate. I was walking out the door, and as usual I heard "Mommy?"

Me: Yes, Lire?

L: Good job, Mommy.

Me: Thanks Lire.

L: Mommy, you good brefts. (Lire-speak for breasts)

Me: Thanks Lire.

L: Mommy, you good 'gina, too. (Got that one?)

Me: Thanks Lire.

L: You good hiney, Mommy.

Me: Thanks sweetie.

Then he gave me the thumbs up and a wink, and he was off to beddy-bye.

A couple times he's told me my breath doesn't smell so good. Usually first thing in the morning, before breakfast and toothbrushing. Thanks, Lire.

Monday as I buckled him into his car seat he said: "Mommy, I smell something your mouth."

"Here it comes" I thought.

L: Smell good.

Me: Yeah?

L: Smell like smoothie.

Me: Thanks Lire.

Habtamu: Mommy, you breath smell like princess.

Awwww!

Of course, beyond the compliments to my body and breath, Lire has also been spouting a bit of violence. When I used to have to hold Habtam, he (H) would shout all manner of insults and threats at me. For whatever reason, Lire has internalized them and decided to use them with new adult acquaintances. Today at the local coffee place that originated in Seattle, he met a Buddhist monk who sits at the zendo across the street from us. He doesn't dress in his robes out on the street, he was dressed like a regular guy. Anyway, I said hello, he greeted Lire, and Lire answers with, "I throw on you head!"

Monk: chuckling, "What did you say?"

Lire enacted tossing his juice at the poor man's head, adding "I throw super-high!"

I've been noticing lately that Lire especially is more self conscious when meeting adults. He never used to be, but as he's developed self awareness and language, he's gotten more, well, anxious. And this is a laid-back little man. This is when he resorts to his "Power talk" as I've coined it. Habtam does it too, but for him it's about being faster, smarter, stronger, taller. He directs his at other little boys and grown men. Usually not girls or women.

Lire does it to all grown-ups, especially really nice and gentle people. I figure it's a phase he's got to get through -- they both need to feel they are powerful and in control. But it can be a bit embarrassing when your 3 1/2 year old threatens a Buddhist monk. Or when he tells Habtamu's teacher he's going to "cut her" with his scissors.

Sheesh. To counteract the above, note the sweet little guy below sleeping with my old Cabbage Patch doll. He's dubbed him "Baby Deji" after the son of a friend of ours. He requests his presence constantly these days, which does my heart good.

holy robin, batman!

Lire likes to find "pretty things" outside. He then shows them to me and usually gives them to our little Buddha in my sewing room. These types of things include rocks, shells, shards of glass, broken pieces of plastic.

Today it was the shell from a robin's egg.

Me: Wow! Where did you find it?

Lire: Outside, on ground.

Me: (holding shell and noticing it was still sticky) Um, on the ground?

Lire: In bush, then on ground. I get big stick, I poke, poke poke bush...

Me: (!) You hit the nest?! And then the egg fell on the ground?

Lire: (noticing my alarm, he gets quiet) I get stick... so pretty...

We go outside so he can show me. Between me, Dad and Lire, we figure out that yes, our small boy has disrupted a robin's nest, poked the hell out of it and ended the very short life of one of its future denizens. We explained to him why this wasn't a good idea, but acknowledged that he didn't mean to hurt the egg or the birds, but to try not to do it again.

Once Lire realized that the egg was to become a baby robin, well, he was crushed.

Lire: I want time-out.

Me: You didn't mean it, Lire, you don't need a time-out.

Lire: Yes, I time-out.

Me: Well, if you want to, you can sit in your room and come out when you feel better.

I open the door to go in myself and hold it open for him.

Lire: I no time-out.

M: Ok.

This followed an interrupted nap which itself was followed by a tantrum brought on by having to choose between staying home with me and going grocery shopping with Daddy. Lire's choice. Then later at dinner he cried because, well, I forget why. Something having to do with mustard maybe. Or apple juice.

I think he may be having a change of life or something.

(Lire is pretending he has removed one of his eyeballs and put it into his mouth. This was learned by Uncle J. Nice.)

tiger suits and dinosaur eggs

Today was a de-gorgeous day here -- sunny, 50ish degrees, lots of yellow flowers popping up all over. Lire was still napping and Al had gone to pick H up at school. Chauncey and I were cleaning up the yard. At least I was cleaning the yard. Chauncey imagines he is my Centurion, guarding the perimeters of our property against speeding tractors and noisy pick-ups.

The boys have managed to make our yard look pretty trashy, I must say. Broken plastic frisbees and sand buckets, bubble wands aplenty, sodden tennis balls and random pieces of wood decorate our lawn. So I decided to pick up a bit while the wee lad slept. I kept the front door open, so when he awoke, he would see me.

I traversed the lawn about a million times, picking up random bits and throwing them in a bucket. I kept looking at the door for Lire's little face, listening for his usual post-nap "Mommy?... Mommy?" I found one of Al's garden spades amongst a pile of broken bricks (yikes! what do these boys do when I'm not around?). I decided to put it in his work room, to keep it from rusting when I heard the saddest sound.

Heart-wrenching sobs! I rushed to the inner door and opened it to find my sad little Lire on the other side! He was beside himself with sadness and fear that no one was home for him! Writing about it hurts my heart yet again. I've been so strict about one of us being around for the boys when they awaken, and all last summer he would come outside to look for us after a nap. I guess with the cold weather he hadn't remembered that I may be outside.

I held him and rocked him and told him I would never leave him alone, not ever. That he must have been so scared to wake up and not find anyone in the house. To add comic relief to the situation, Chauncey decided this was the perfect time to rip the hat off my head. For those of you who don't know, it's C-dog's favorite trick, next to catching the boys' tee-ball hits. He did it not once, but twice as Lire bawled and I tried to comfort him. You have to give the dog some credit, he was trying to lighten the situation.

Dad and Habtam arrived home and I carried him over to them. Fortunately, Al had a plastic dinosaur egg that hatches when immersed in water in his hand, which put a smile on his face.

It brought home (again) to me how fresh the boys' relinquishment is in their subconscious. Just below the surface of Lire's joyful exterior. I find myself thinking how terrified he must have been, and it twists my insides into a knot. You will be glad to know that he had a wonderful rest of his day. He is anxiously awaiting the hatching of the dinosaur egg, and wore his tiger suit for the bedtime story. Little man.

time was...

A year since the boys' arrival is soon approaching. We've come a long way in a lot of respects, and are still struggling in others. I've been reading a couple blogs in which the families have just recently returned, and it is bringing back LOTS of memories. Some great, some very painful.

H had another spitting/screaming episode the other day. He hadn't had one in a really long time. I feel responsible for it in some ways, I should have eased off of him. I was PMSy, and was triggered by his disrespect -- he resembles a teenager in a lot of ways. Anyway, he ended up spitting at Lire, so I carried him to his room so he could spit on his bed as I held him, and not at his brother or anywhere else in the house.

Sigh.

I held him while he screamed about how much he hated me, how he wanted to go to the store with Daddy, a few odd threats thrown in. I started to watch my breath go in and out, trying to become an observer as well as a participant to the situation. I realized I should have stayed downstairs and ignored a few of his earlier activities and words. None of this would have happened, and who cares if he trashed the piano?

I think my conscious breathing calmed him. He stopped fighting me and his shrill scream turned into a little boy's crying. I said a few things that validated how he might feel -- angry at me, afraid, not liking when people didn't like the things he did and being told to stop doing those things. He nodded at most of them, especially the last one. He said he didn't like it when people told him to stop or to change. I acknowledged that it is hard to hear people tell you that they don't like what you're doing. And I told him I didn't like it much, either, but sometimes it was to help us. I admitted that Daddy and I often told one another we didn't like what the other was doing or saying, and although it made us angry, we knew it was usually to help us make better decisions. He actually seemed quite interested in this.

Hugging ended our session, and he went outside and did yard work with Dad.

None of this really had to have happened, if I had just minded my business and let the kid be a kid. At the same time, I'm glad we ended up having the discussion we had at the end. I always feel spent and a bit of a failure after one of these blow-ups. However, I do feel I'm learning how to get through them better, H and L seem to be weathering their tantrums better and we're avoiding them more.

Craft and seek

Bad Erin!

I have been remiss in many things, one of which is getting an Etsy shop up. Instead of finishing my quilts, I've been obsessed with this book.

It's way too much fun. I would be booted off Proj@ct Runw@y faster than you can say Km@art, but I'm having a very good time. I've refashioned a baggy turtleneck sweater, an ankle-length skirt, and a hoodie. The hoodie makeover is very lame, but the sweater looks great, and the skirt has potential. I'll post pics as soon as I finish putting on buttons and finishing edges.

For now I will leave you with the latest Hide n' Seek costumes:

Tiger, tiger, burning bright -- so bright he had to wear shades

Sporty Superman -- eschewing his good-guy image he spent all afternoon attempting to rip the mask off of Tiger's face

Superman was terrified of Tiger. I think that's why he wanted the mask. He finally realized why Batman and Spiderman wore masks -- courage.

Also, I have a question. Why do boys throw things? Just curious.

let's go shopping!

At dinner last night Alex was talking to the boys about our impending visit to NYC. He mentioned that we might visit Chinatown. Habtamu stared at him for a long time. "China?" he asked. Daddy clarified that it was "Chinatown", not the country of China, and that there would be lots of interesting and strange toys to choose from while there. I mentioned that I didn't want any more small plastic things in the house (I mentioned my issues with JUNK in my last post). Habtamu stared at Daddy some more.

H: "Where I buy person?"

Us: ?

Daddy: Um, did you say "buy a person?"

H: Yes.

Me: Do you mean a person to get married to?

H: Yes?

Daddy: ?

Me: Do you think that people buy the people they want to marry?

H: Yes.

Yeah, I know. Where did THIS come from? My brother got engaged before Christmas, and over the Easter holiday asked Habtam and Lire to be ring bearers in his wedding. I'm guessing that this has taken on grand proportions in his imagination, as he is very excited to be able to wear "fancy clothes" on that day. But why he thinks my brother bought his bride-to-be, I know not.

I told him how Daddy and I loved one another very much and that Daddy asked if I wanted to marry him. I told him how I said "Of course!" and how we both wore rings to show that we were married and had a wedding to celebrate it. I told him that his uncle and soon-to-be auntie had done the same.

Then I asked him that if he could marry anyone in his class at school, who would it be? I won't divulge it here, but he made a very good choice. I told him that I would marry her, too, if I weren't already married to Daddy.

H: When I marry?

Me: You have to wait until you're a grown-up, at least 18 years old.

H: (Looks troubled by this bit of info) I marry C_____?

Me: If she wants to marry you too, sure.

Never one to be left out of such an important discussion, Lire asked to be asked whom he would marry. So we did. Lire wants to marry both of his teachers. I told him they were already married, but he didn't care.

Habtamu wondered if one could marry more than one person, so we told him that he couldn't (at least not in this country). One at a time.

I think one of the reasons he likes her is because she likes to race him. Upon entering school the other day they both ran at full tilt to see who would arrive at class first. However, later in the day she betrayed him by giving the blue jewel (plastic), he had found and given to her, to another boy. The boy in question apparently gave it to a boy in the other Pre-k class. H was temporarily devastated, but bounced back quickly.

Young love.

ready or not!

The boys have been perfecting their game of Hide and Seek of late. One of them will hide, often with the help of one of us. The other will pick a room to count in. Depending on who's doing the counting, it can be quite hilarious. Lire does the "10, 13, 21, 13... Mommy help?" while Habtam makes it to 20, and then free-forms it from there. They insist on counting to 30, even though the hiding doesn't take that long.

Yesterday while it was H's time to hide, L decided he was too scared to look for his brother. "I too scared, Mommy." This is because they both growl and scream upon being found, which scares the pee-pee (literally in Lire's case), out of them.

Ever resourceful, Lire dug through the bin filled with various and sundry JUNK gotten from birthday parties and school holiday events (don't get me started on the JUNK. I do not heart it. At all) He pulled out a green glitter Mardi Gras mask. He put it on as if it was what he had been looking for all along, and marched down the stairs, reaching for my hand.

"I scare Habtam. Habtam no scare Lire."

And it worked. Habtam was terrified by the little man in the green glitter mask. Wouldn't you be?