How To Teach Your Child To Color On Himself

In the interest of relieving some stress on my part, my darling sister made dinner for me and offered to paint my nails. My love language is primarily acts of service, so this made me feel very special and very loved. Both of the kids were extremely interested in the whole process of painting nails and my son was particularly intrigued that his Auntie was “coloring” mommy’s fingernails. He expressed some concern that my toenails should be painted as well, to which I happily obliged. I do believe that he was generally disappointed with the way things turned out, however, when his suggestion to paint my knees next was overruled.

Paying Homage To The Scary, Scary Needle

Some mornings I wake up and have to wrack my brain to think of something to blog about. This only happens rarely, as there is always something going on around here. However, this morning was one of those unusual mornings where I woke up and thought, “Ugh. I really need to blog today… what am I going to write about?” And then my husband decided to go for the blood work the doctor ordered last week.

My husband is not a little guy. He is six-foot-two-inches tall and he’s strong; he can grow a beard in a matter of days due to his Irish genes that are constantly shoving hair through his skin night and day. The shoes he wears are a size thirteen and could double as a canoe and save the lives of my children during a flood.

Notwithstanding his manly appearance, my poor husband despises needles. So much so that if his inner elbow is even touched by my hand he blanches and his insides begin to churn. He needs to be restrained if the need arises for splinter removal, and stubbing a toe requires bed rest in order to make a complete recovery.

Needless to say, it greatly surprised me to see him up and preparing to go to the lab this morning without my pestering him about it for weeks and weeks. I tried not to think about what was happening the whole time he was gone because I just couldn’t see how it would help; instead I tried to focus on controlling the spurt of giggles that was sure to issue forth from my mouth on seeing him stumble through the door in the manner of a person who has had a near-death experience.

Sure enough, on his arrival home he turned the key in the door and lurched into the living room looking like there wasn’t blood enough left in his whole body to set a little color to his cheeks. So much for trying to be kind: my nostrils flared and my lips pursed with the effort it took to maintain a straight face. He tap-danced into the dining room with his squirmy legs going a mile a minute in his distress.

“How did it go?” I ask.

“It was horrible! They took two HUGE vials of blood and then a small one! They were like this big,” he insists while measuring an imaginary four-inch tube, “I should have taken a glass of juice with me or something.”

“They usually have…” I begin, but he cuts me off.

“…And then my shoe fell off because I was squirming in my seat so much. I was trying to think about the kids, but then I couldn’t concentrate because my shoe was on the floor. You should have gone with me!” he whines while high stepping around the dining room unable to keep still. “I don’t know how I’m going to be able to work today- I’m not going to be able to use my arm… I should have asked for a sling… or a note for work. It hurt so much! I must have sensitive veins or something.”

That last part about did it for me. “You DO NOT have sensitive veins! What does that even mean? Do you know how often I have to go and get stuck?! And I always bruise!” I screeched (because I’m apparently incapable of acting like an adult one-hundred-percent of the time myself).

He stopped pacing long enough to think about how silly his last statement sounded and he even managed a chuckle. I patted him on the back and told him how proud I was that he went to the lab all by himself without being threatened on pain of death. That helped, but I think he was really hoping for a lollipop and for me to swab his forehead with a cool cloth while murmuring what a “poor baby” he was.

“You know,” he muttered, “I think I told her to think how silly it would be if I was a sky-diving instructor and yet couldn’t sit still for a needle.” His thought processes are just weird that way. I guess that’s part of the reason I love him so much.

And So It Happens

There was a point yesterday afternoon where I was unsure whether I was at long last losing my mind, or if my daughter was the possessor of super-powers. My son had decided to make yesterday one of those rare days where he clambers up onto the couch and settles down for a nap; my ten-month-old daughter sat on the floor with her teething blanket watching a video, so I thought I would take the opportunity to go upstairs to check my email and shut down the computer.

It was only a couple of seconds before the baby noticed that I was gone, and I heard her crawl over to the steps and start banging on them with her little open palm. She does this frequently, as she has decided that the stairs are great fun and she likes to climb up and down, up and down, on the bottom step. She had only once managed to mount the second step.

Over the next minute or so I could hear her smacking and happily jabbering which perplexed me a little bit because of late she has been suffering from acute separation anxiety to the point that I can rarely go to the bathroom without actually taking her in with me. I turned off the computer and swiveled the chair just in time to see her proud smiling face peek around the corner from the top of the steps.

I made reference earlier to the fact that I thought I might be losing my mind, because when I saw her at the top step I became instantly confused and wondered how I could have forgotten that I had brought her upstairs with me. I figured it was out of the question that a tiny person, weighing a mere thirteen pounds at her ten month check-up, would have been able to climb three steps onto a landing, make a ninety-degree turn, and scramble up an addition ten steps. Being fairly certain that I had not brought her up myself I naturally concluded that she must be capable of flight.

After making a couple of frantic phone calls (mainly to re-assure myself that men in dark suits wouldn’t be knocking on my door to take my children away because of some perceived neglect) and fervently thanking God that my daughter didn’t tumble down the stairs and break all of her bones, I decided it would be a good idea to watch her in another attempt so that I could see how she had managed to get safely to the top looking so proud of herself. She may have only been able to mount the bottom step at breakfast, but now she was zipping up those steps like she’d been doing it for weeks, chattering and shaking her head around, with her pants falling down the whole way up.

Snuggle Buggle

The little guy has gotten into the habit of requesting to go bye-bye every morning. He will start at the top of his list, “go see Nana’s house”, and proceed to work down the list from “go the store” all the way to the bottom, “go to doctor’s”, in hopes of finding something that I will agree to do. One look at his bruisy knees and elbows would suggest that I frequently give in to requests like “goes outside” and “go to the park”. The poor kid appears destined to have his mommy’s genetics which dictate instant bruising if someone even stares too intensely in my general direction.

This morning my son started asking to go to Nana’s house before he even woke up. Unfortunately for him, mommy is just too tired to go anywhere today; I find that traipsing about with two children in tow takes a certain amount of energy. There are advantages to being tired: I tend to be more flexible about the amount of housework I feel needs to be done over the course of the day, which leaves me more time to enjoy my children.

After lunch the baby fell asleep in her highchair and my son decided he wanted to snuggle. It is not often that he wishes to snuggle during the afternoon, and considering that I felt like laying on the couch anyway the timing was swell. Although there were a lot of elbows and knees and toes digging into my organs and extremities it was still the best snuggling experience ever, with lots of kisses and chitchat and I-love-you’s. Still, all (good) things must come to an end and all little bladders need to be emptied; in this case the wetting of the blanket signaled the end of snuggle time for us and the beginning of laundry time for me.

And Goodwill Toward Little Boys

It isn’t every day that a nice energetic, grandmotherly sort of lady buys my son a blue parrot at the craft store. As we passed her near the end of an aisle, she greeted my son and he immediately launched into a tribute about a parrot figurine he had seen on our last trip. It would seem that she found him quite charming and the two of them chatted about the wonderful model bird that the little guy remembered.

After a few pleasant minutes we parted company and continued on with our individual shopping activities. A little while later when we passed near the front of the store the same nice lady hailed us from the checkout line to confer upon my little boy the parrot he had so lovingly described to her.

It was such a refreshing and heartening experience; both my son and I were imprinted by the act of kindness. My son was still repeating the words of blessing that I prayed for our friendly stranger as I strapped him into his car seat. Hearing him pray for someone or listening to him loudly sing “Jesus Loves Me” during our errands is so fulfilling.

Rule #1: Bugs Belong Outside

My husband thought it would be a good idea to bring a salamander into the living room. I admit I have always thought salamanders to be cute little buggers, but not inside where they could leap from a person’s hand to dart under the living room furniture where they would be lost forever until turning up on the bed pillow all snuggly and curled up next to one’s head. I mean really, there are limits and rules about where one can handle these types of creatures. At least there should be.















I would like to say a word about the dreaded stinkbug. It seems that as soon as the weather begins to get warm they manage to find their way into the house. There haven’t been many yet this spring; the new windows appear to be reducing the number that actually penetrates the living space. While my girlfriend and I were at the park the other day she was telling me a story about how she woke up one night to find a stinkbug pattering around on her lips. She thought it was a hair and when she went to brush it away she realized, to her horror, that it was not a hair.

As I was getting myself ready for bed on Friday night I came across one of the cats staring at the moulding near the bathroom door. This posture typically means that he is watching a bug; sure enough, I followed his gaze right to the culprit. I grabbed a piece of toilet paper and proceeded to seize the stinkbug. Alas, my bit of toilet paper was not large enough and the imposter flitted away before I could acquire a good death-grip.

I searched and looked and even squinted in every corner looking for that stinkbug. I even tried to get the cat re-interested in the game, but he quit on me and went to lie down in a nice comfy chair somewhere. At the urging of my bladder I finally gave up and went into the bathroom. Whilst enjoying the liberty of being able to relieve myself without an audience, I felt a string tickling my right upper arm.

First, I remembered that my shirt had no loose strings, and very quickly after that I recalled my friend relating the feel of a stinkbug’s feet to a tickly hair. I cringed and slowly turned my head to peak down at my arm. Of course I did what any in-control person would do when discovering a disgusting bug crawling on their body: I flicked that thing off my arm to land wherever it may.

Thankfully, it landed in the white cast-iron tub so I didn’t have to go back to my fruitless search. I’m sure it got quite a laugh sitting on my shoulder while I searched high and low for its new perch. If you live in a house prone to stinkbugs beware the crawling tickly hair on your face that wakes you up in the middle of the night, it might try to crawl up your nose.

Wow. The Sun Is Hot.

One would think that I’m a brand-new mom and have never taken my children outside in the warmer weather. It was nice and toasty warm here today and my girlfriend and I took the kiddos to the park. It is always tricky this time of year when it comes to appropriate outdoor attire. Sometimes there is still a bit of a nip in the air even when the temperature goes up.

I decided against putting the little guy in shorts and opted for what I thought was the safer choice: wind pants. Last summer I stored a bottle of sunblock in the car so that I didn’t have to remember to take it with me every time I left the house. Of course I haven’t gotten around to doing that yet this year.















So there we were at the park. And let me tell ya, it was pretty darn hot out there today. Way too hot for wind pants and way too intense for fair skin to be without sunblock. After being there for about five minutes I was trying to decide whether the flush in my kid’s cheeks was extremely fast-acting sunburn that had the ability to penetrate the hat he wore or if he was being smothered to death by his too-hot pants.















One of the other young mothers (whose bag looked like it had enough stuff in it to cover any feasible emergency and then some) took pity on me as she watched me fret over the poor little guy’s face and offered to share her sunblock and some advice. For all of you out there who are ignorant in the purchasing of sunblock and just buy whatever brand you can find that is available with SPF 45, she told me that Blue Lizard sunblock is the best for kids because it contains zinc oxide (she works at a dermatologist office, so I guess she would know).















The little guy had tons of fun going down the slides while his sister chilled in the stroller and I found myself able to relax a little knowing that the sun wasn’t going to char and disfigure my baby’s face. I do believe I will put him in shorts tomorrow, especially if our day entails any romping around in the afternoon sun; and as soon as the period is typed onto the end of this sentence I am going to grab the pink tube of tear-free SPF 50 sunblock and put it into the diaper bag.