We’ve had a string of playdates during my week at home with the boys. Each time we’ve had a playdate over the past week I have explained to the boys that we’re getting together with “_____ [fill in the child’s name] and _____’s Mommy.” Each time the boys have asked, “But where is _____’s Daddy?” and I have had to bite my tongue and explain as simply as possible that the Daddy “is at work.” K & O are still young enough that I was hoping they just simply wouldn’t pick up on the patterned fact that all these Daddys are working and all these Mommys are not. I know that I will have to someday, but I hate the thought of having to try to explain
that to my precious young men. And I will admit that I have been putting
that off for as long as possibly possible. Yesterday we were getting ready for our final playdate and I explained to the boys that “Noah and Noah’s Mommy” were coming over to swim in the pool with us. Kyle asked, “But where is Noah’s Daddy?” I said my line: “Noah’s Daddy is at work.” Kyle and Owen looked at each other silently for a second. Then Kyle scrunched up his eyebrows and said: “But where are
all the Daddy’s?”
When the boys are playing they often pretend that they are taking care of animals or “rescuing” them. This obviously stems from their love of Go Diego Go videos (Diego is an “Animal Rescuer”). When they play with their dolls they almost always pretend that their dolls are being naughty and they have to give these dolls time outs for bad behavior. Lately they will regularly explain to me what they are pretending while they are pretending it (“I am rescuing Baby Jaguar!!!”/”I need to save the baby condors!!”/etc… & “He has a TIME OUT!!! He hit me!”/”He bit me!”/”He kicked me!”/”He is acting up!”/”He is talking back to me!!!!”). Kyle and Owen always explain that they are the animal’s “Mommy” or the doll’s “Mommy”… I have never once observed them pretend to be the “Daddy” or the “Papi.”
The vast majority of the boys’ time playing is spent rolling around in the driveway on anything that has wheels. They constantly announce cheerily that they are “GOING TO WORK!!!” Sometimes they will find something that they can pretend is a bag to carry over their shoulder. They are very animated as they incessantly explain: “I’m going to my office! I’m going to work now! It is time to go to work!!!” And often — very often — they add on: “I’m going to Lehigh!” or “I’m going to my Lehigh office!” or “My office is at Lehigh!” I have rarely ever observed them pretend to be going go Papi’s office. They are always going to my office.
Yesterday I was on the phone with a friend. When I got off the boys were asking about who it was and what we were talking about. I was trying to explain to the boys that the point of the phone call was to try to set up a regular playdate with them and their Nanny Alex and Annabelle and Annabelle’s Nanny Sonya. I said, “It will be Kyle, Owen, Alex, Annabelle, and Sonya!” Owen said, “That sounds like fun!” Kyle said, “Yea! That sounds like fun!” Then Kyle paused for a second and said, “Where are the Mommys going to be?” And Owen said, “That’s silly Kyle!!! The Mommys will be working!!!!!!” And they both laughed then kept playing.
Our Summer Nanny, Alex, has been away for the past week on a vacation. I have been home with the boys. I have tried to keep up with some work during their nap times and after they go to bed at night, but for the most part I’ve been a stay-at-home-mama for the week (well, except that I’m carrying around the mind-numbing-weight of the constant-stress-and-anxiety-of-letting-far-too-much-slip-between-the-cracks-work-wise). At this point in my life I honestly cannot imagine doing just one thing: working or staying home. If nothing else, a week like the past one is a good reminder for me that I truly love and embrace the identity and the reality of being a Working Mother. And I also truly love and embrace the identity and the reality of us being a Two Career Family. I’m glad to have that reminder from time to time because sometimes in the craze of it all that is hard to remember. Anyhoo………… This past week I’ve done a lot of the things that I think stay-at-home moms do: I’ve run a lot of errands with the boys (the grocery store, the dry cleaner, the pool store, etc.), had a lot of playdates with the boys and friends (Jackson, Noah, Joy Lin, etc.), and spent a lot of quality down-time/at-home-time with the boys doing just regular-nothing-special stuff. We also went to McDonalds for lunch one day and to the Waffle House for breakfast one day. We went to their favorite park, and we spent a lot of time in our backyard and our swimming pool. We have had a great time together and tomorrow Alex comes back.
P.S. — Oh, and I potty trained them this week too. đŸ˜‰
This past weekend we hosted a reunion at our house of a group of great friends from the six years we lived in Boston. We all lived in Boston in our 20s, had some
really (and I mean, REALLY!) good times there/then, but have since all moved to different parts of the country for our careers. We had fifteen folks here for the weekend — they came from San Francisco, Rhode Island, Washington D.C., and New York City. We got to meet and get to know each other’s kids. And best of all, we got to hang out again. We had an
absolute BLAST. We drank waaaaaaaaaay too many margaritas, stayed up waaaaaaaaaaaaaay past our bedtime (going to bed at 2 am was just fine back when we didn’t have little kids who wake up at 7!), we laughed waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much, and spoiled each other’s beautiful children waaaaaaaaaaay more than any child deserves (ahhh, who am I kidding?!–these kids
all deserved it!).
It really was the best weekend imaginable for a group of old friends. It was sad to see them all go yesterday. Here are some photos from the weekend. As always, you can click on any of them to enlarge. Melannie, Scott, Luke, Caroline, Gaby, Rebecca, Jeff, Ange, Ben, Alex, and Angelica: Thank you for coming. We love each and every single one of you.
Kyle and I, lying in bed alone together early this morning, discussing his numerous scrapes, cuts, bruises, and gashes all over his entire body… Kyle: “Mommy, I like owies. Mommy, I like to crash.”
The whole family, riding in the car this evening driving home from Father’s Day dinner at the boys’ favorite restaurant (Carrabas), I was trying to explain to K & O that the back-seat windows in our car do not go all the way down like the back-seat windows did in the rental car we had on Virgin Gorda… Owen: “Mommy, I’m so mad at you about these windows. Mommy, I need to be rude at you!”
I guess everyone was right: when they’re ready, they’re ready. It doesn’t surprise me that my two were ready at the exact same time. They both took their first steps on the very same day (actually in the very same moment). They’ve done pretty much everything — and now potty training — completely together in unison. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that they are fully 100% “potty trained,” and I’m sure we’re in for many bumps in the road in the days/weeks/months/years to come, but in the past week we’ve gone from fully-diaper-wearing-boys to fully-underpants-wearing-boys. I knew it was for real when this morning I took my two underpants-wearing-boys out to the post office and to do our grocery shopping — out and about for over 2 hours — with no accidents whatsoever. Not even any near-misses or close-calls. We’re getting rid of the Diaper Genie. I just put it in the trash (it was broken anyway, and we had refused to get a new one so we were just using it despite it being broken). I’m so happy to have that nasty smelly ugly white plastic thing out of our house and out of our life. We’ve been living with it for the past 2.5 years and I’m happy it is now gone for good. But at the same time… I must admit… it does feel a bit bitter-sweet to watch my boys discover their new-found independence. It’s all good, of course. But it is also just another milestone in a whole string of them as we watch our cute little baby boys turn into gorgeous self-confident young men.
In the post office this morning Owen announced to a 20-something-looking guy who just happened to be in line with us: “I’m wearing underpants!” I watched as the guy took it in stride, gave Owen a high-five and said, “Awesome Little Dude!” I was proud — for sure — but all I could think was, “where did my tiny drooling little baby go???” As Braydon says, I don’t know how we’re going to get through the next 18 years… not because of how tough K & O are to deal with (although God knows sometimes they sure are)… but rather, because of how extreme these joy-pride-adoration-pure-love emotions in parenting them are for us.
I try to avoid doing a lot of shopping with the boys because they are so bad in stores with me. They have never liked shopping; they just aren’t the type. And the threat of leaving the store does not work for them since their goal is to leave the store. When I have to bring them with me on errands I often commit that critical parenting sin: BRIBERY. I’ll say, “If you’re good I’ll give you a cookie!” or “If you don’t act up in this store I’ll push you in the cart over the speed bump in the parking lot!!!” or — in extreme situations, such as yesterday (I had a ton of errands to run) — the big one: “If you’re very, very good I’ll take you to McDonalds!!!!!!!” McDonalds for them is all about those indoor playgrounds that they have. They couldn’t care less about the Happy Meal (although they do like the chocolate milk), their love of “Ronald McDonalds” (as they call it) is purely about their love of those crazy plastic indoor playspaces. So, they were incredibly good all morning shopping and it was time for the big reward. We got the ‘food’ (if you could really call it that), got settled at a table situated right next to the playground thing, the boys took one sip of chocolate milk and took off to climb. The place was packed with lots of other people just like us: mothers running errands bribing their young kids with McDonalds for lunch. I was sitting so close to the playspace that I could see and hear a lot of what was going on in there. Often I could hear my boys trying to initiate conversations with other kids. At times I was actually laughing out loud at what they would say to these kids (most of whom had this response to my boys chatter: they would just stare blankly at K & O and then run away)… Here are the top three Playground Pickup Lines I heard my boys use yesterday (none of which were successful):
- “We saw a PT Cruiser! It was white! Did you see a PT Cruiser?!”
- “Do you want to look out the window with me and my brother to try to see a Mini Cooper?”
- “This is my brother. He’s my brother. He’s not your brother.”
This photo of me was taken by Braydon a couple of weeks ago while we were on a gorgeous strip of beach on Virgin Gorda. I was sitting on the sand watching my sandy salty sun-drenched boys run in and out of the water splashing in the waves. At first glance when I downloaded the vacation photos from our camera and saw this photo pop up on the computer screen I thought it was one to delete. But it somehow made me pause. And I looked at it for awhile. Somehow it drew me in. I didn’t edit it in any way, just saved it as it was. I have come back to look at it numerous times since. I won’t say too much about it — just that I wish that the photo was taken by myself because I feel that it would be the perfect self-portrait. And so much of that portrait is about love for my boys and my husband and my life. Happy Love Thursday everyone near and far.
Alex is away on vacation for a week, and I’m home with the boys, so I decided that I was going to take it upon myself to seize this opportunity to take our potty training (or lack-there-of) to the next level. I’ve been really pushing the potty since we got home from Virgin Gorda and the boys are waaaay into it too. And… Today… drumroll please… was Kyle and Owen’s first day in underpants — a huge, huge milestone day for them both! They were sooooooooooo proud to be wearing underpants. And they both got through the whole day with no accidents! We still have a long road ahead of us with all-things-potty, but we’ve turned a huge corner in the journey.
P.S. In a rare occurrence, when we went shopping for underpants first thing this morning, they each had quite different tastes and preferences: Kyle wanted boxer-style-briefs and Owen wanted to go the more traditional route. And Kyle went for the Lightening McQueen/Cars underpants while Owen went for Thomas. But the minute we got home they ripped off their shorts and diapers to get those undies on ASAP. They could not have been more proud of themselves and each other! Many times today they each exclaimed to me: “We are big boys Mama! Me and my brother both! We are wearing underpants!”
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