by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
Family dinners are a big deal in our house. We eat dinner together every evening and are usually interrupted once or twice by the neighborhood children, who apparently never eat. Ever.
But all that aside, we have a grand time sitting around our dinner table and talking about our days. It’s raucous and crazy and loud and full of constant chatter—because kids aren’t even quiet when they stuff food in their mouths.
It’s probably safe to say that I care a bit more about manners than Husband does, because he doesn’t even blink when the kids answer a question with an over-full mouth stuffed with spaghetti, most of which, in their answering, escapes from their mouths to the table, and the rest of which shoots across toward my eyes, since they’re laughing so hard at the way it looked. It’s about as disgusting as it sounds, so every now and then, you’ll hear me sneaking in that stealthy reminder for them to “don’t talk with their mouth full” and “please don’t smack” and “seriously, don’t inhale your food.”
I have to admit, though, that I used to envision this nice little quiet family dinner around a table of sweet conversation and delicious food that the kids wouldn’t even think of complaining about.
That fantasy left me years ago.
The one thing I can count on when my family sits down to dinner is my kids complaining about what’s on the menu before they’ve even tried it. Doesn’t matter if it’s mashed potatoes drowned in butter or chicken browned in coconut oil, with a bit of celery seed and thyme sprinkled on top or (their favorite) sautéed asparagus, they’re going to complain. If I believed them, my kids wouldn’t like hamburgers, chicken soup, grilled cheese, breakfast for dinner or, especially, carrot chips.
It never fails that a kid will come traipsing into the house, after playing outside with his friends and working up an appetite as only boys can do, that he will sniff and say, “Something smells yummy,” walk over to the stove and, upon seeing what’s cooking, say, “Aw, man. I don’t like that,” to which I reply, “Welp. More for me,” because clearly I care what he thinks.
Once they taste what’s for dinner, there’s not really a problem, but those few minutes between dinner showing up and kids shoveling it in their mouths are quite a problem for now. If I thought blindfolds would work to combat the complaining, I’d invest in half a dozen. But then they’d just complain about the smells.
When we’re all seated at the table, with our plates full, at least three of the kids will ask to be excused so they can get some milk. It’s not a problem at all, so of course we say yes. They pour their milk and bring it back to the table, and, thirty seconds later, it’s all over the floor and table.
This happens just about every night. It doesn’t matter how long they’ve been practicing drinking milk in a cup, someone is going to spill. You might wonder why this happens with such amazing continuity. Well, we are eight people crammed at a table built for four. A new kitchen table is not in our budget, so we sit practically on top of each other, because we’re a family that loves. Every now and then our boys will ask why we can’t use the dining room table, which was built for at least six people. We give some lame excuse about how it’s a glass table and we don’t feel like cleaning up all the fingerprints boys will paint on it when they use its underside as a napkin, even though they have a perfectly good napkin sitting beside their plate. I’d just rather not know what happens underneath a table.
There is also such thing as a Thermos, which would eliminate the possibility of such frequent milk spills. But let me tell you what happens to Thermoses in our world.
1. Boy pours milk.
2. Boy puts lid on Thermos.
3. Boy drinks most of the milk, but not all.
4. Boy “loses” the Thermos somewhere between end-of-dinner and after-dinner chores.
5. Parents find missing Thermos six weeks later.
6. No one wants to open it.
I’ll take milk spills over curdled milk any day.
Next on the list for the perfect family dinner is getting up and down from the table. My boys remember to ask to be excused about once out of four times. It’s still a mystery to me how they’re sitting there eating a bowl of spaghetti squash, and they suddenly remember this flower drawing they did in art class today, and they have to show me, right now, or they’re going to die. Or, two minutes after dinner begins, they realize they need to go potty. Or, ten minutes after dinner begins, one of their friends rings the doorbell, because they apparently think we can eat dinner in ten minutes.
They get up to see what their brother just laughed out his nose. They get up to grab the food they just dropped on the floor. They get up just to get up.
When they finally sit down long enough to actually have a conversation, everybody’s yelling. This happens because the boys are trying to tell us about their days, and no one’s taking turns with the talking, so they think if they just talk louder maybe they’ll have a better chance of getting heard.
This is the time of dinner when I usually reach my system overload and start talking like a robot, repeating the words, “System overload. System overload. System overload” until everyone looks at me like I’m crazy, because, well, I am. But it works. The table grows silent, everyone wondering how close Mama is to meltdown mode. And because of this, we can finally take turns asking about each of their days and get a portion of the story, before one brother interrupts another with something they forgot to say during their turn. It doesn’t take long for the talking to turn back into yelling, but by then there’s no more food left anyway. Dinner’s over.
At some point during the dinner, someone will make a potty joke. This is one other characteristic of dinner I can always count on. Someone will fart and send the whole table into peals of laughter and then “Oh my gosh, it smells so bad” proclamations. Someone will burp and crack everybody up again. Someone will arm fart “The Star-Spangled Banner” while the rest of us watch, mesmerized. Someone will tell a joke that contains the words, “poop,” “pee” and “armpits” in the same sentence. They think it’s the most hilarious thing in the world, and sometimes you do, too—until they start talking about vomit.
That’s when I like to say, “We’re eating, guys. Please don’t mess up this broccoli cheese soup for me.” Because, you know, it wasn’t hard enough to get them to eat it in the first place. Now every time they look at it, they’ll see vomit. Challenge accepted.
Whoever has the sweeping chore for the week always has quite a job to look forward to after dinner. This is mostly due to the 14-month-old, who has a proficient mastery of identifying the color green and eliminating it from his tray. But the 4-year-olds aren’t all that great either, stuffing green beans under their booster seats, except they aren’t great at aiming, either, so it ends up in a pile under the table. We don’t have a dog, so all this food—which could probably feed a small country—mostly goes to waste. It really is a shame.
Every night, when we finish dinner, I find myself wondering whether I really live with a pack of raccoons disguised as good-looking little boys. I’m just glad I don’t have to sweep the floor anymore.
And the last thing I can always count on, no matter the day or what’s for dinner or how much we had to eat, is my 4-year-old twins saying they’re still hungry—because four bowls of chicken noodle soup was not enough for a 40-pound kid. They will eat their body weight in pizza and still say they’re hungry when it’s all said and done.
All in all, even with the noisy, disgusting, messy displays of my children, family dinners are my favorite part of the day. Mostly because I enjoy eating. But also because I enjoy sitting together and laughing together and talking together about whatever it is that makes my boys laugh or cry or smile or scowl or feel glad to be a part of an amazing family.
And those nights when they end dinner saying, “This was the best dinner ever?” I call that winning.
Hasn’t happened yet. But I’m sure it’s right around the corner.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
It never fails. We’re coming up on bedtime, and my boys lose their minds and, somehow, forget what it is we’ve done every single night for the entirety of their lives, which, for some, is arguably more than others. But still. Every single night. How do you deviate from an every-single-night routine?
It usually happens right when we’re getting ready to start story time. The 9-year-old thinks it’s run-around-the-house-naked-and-see-who’s-fastest time. Nope. The 6-year-old thinks it’s stand-on-my-head-without-any-underwear-on time. Nope. The 5-year-old thinks it’s antagonize-his-4-year-old-brothers time. Nope.
The 4-year-olds think it’s play-chase-and-try-to-jump-over-pillows time and try-to-eat-as-much-toothpaste-as-we-can-while-Mama-and-Daddy-aren’t-looking time and throw-stuffed-animals-in-the-air-and-watch-them-destroy-the-room time. Nope, nope, nope.
“Okay,” I’ll usually say, in my best fake enthusiastic voice (because I’m usually just about done this time of night. Not because I don’t love stories. I love stories. I don’t love trying to shout above the roar of five boys doing exactly what they’re not supposed to.). “It’s time for stories. Remember the consequences?”
No one hears me, of course.
I say it a little louder. Still nothing, at which point I yell at the top of my lungs, “Sit down, or it’s early lights out for you.”
I know it’s not the best way of handling these wild animals, but our megaphone went missing, and I need something effective. Mama doesn’t yell a whole lot. So when I do, they pay attention. Well, about 2 percent of the time. It’s something, though.
You know what? I was mistaken. The mysterious short-term memory loss doesn’t start with story time. It actually starts right after dinner. We get to chore time, and everyone high-tails it outside, because I guess they forgot that they have to wipe the counters and the table and do the dishes and sweep the floor and take out the trash, like they have EVERY OTHER NIGHT OF THEIR LIVES (starting when they turned 3). So we have to waste our own valuable time rounding them all up to complete their chores, so they can all run outside again once they’re finished, even though then it’s time for a little Family time, and then it’s time for bath time. Playing outside time is done.
Every time I announce to all of them that now it’s bath time, this is the response I get:
“WHAT?!!!!!!!” (It might even be a few more exclamation marks. They’re always completely surprised. It’s like a surprise party every night.)
They’ll stomp up the stairs, while I clean up the baby and Husband wrangles the twins, and somewhere in between the time they stood at the bottom of the stairs and the time they get to the top, they have forgotten what it is, exactly, that they’re supposed to be doing (again), because now they’re flipping off they chaise in the home library, and one of them is rolling along the floor with a stuffed animal and another is doing sit-ups for his “workout.”
Let me just interject here that we run a very tight ship in our home. They know the schedule. Baths between 7 and 7:20 p.m., story times between 7:20 and 7:50, prayer time between 7:50 and 8. Bedtime, 8:15 sharp.
But every one of those transitions is news to them.
They forget it’s time for dinner, because they’re out in the cul-de-sac playing with their friends, and not stuck inside, bored, so they don’t know that the grumbling in their bellies is telling them they’re hungry. They only know that they want to keep playing. They forget it’s time for chores, because they were having so much fun they want to go back outside with their friends, who must not ever eat, instead of staying in the house, doing boring chores. They forget it’s time for reading, because they’ve just gotten out of the bath, and it feels like maybe it’s time to wrestle with their brother instead of time to wind down for bed.
When it’s get-in-bed-and-stay-there time, it’s much more fun to wander downstairs “accidentally” to “check on a LEGO Minecraft construction” and start playing with the LEGOs again.
Me: It’s not time to play with the LEGOs. It’s actually time to get in bed. Playing with LEGOs is not getting in bed.
9-year-old: But I didn’t get to play with the LEGOs all day.
Me: You mean, you didn’t get to play with them for five hours? You only got to play with them for four? Because you’ve had a long day of LEGO playing. I can tell by the mess on the floor.
9-year-old: I didn’t make that mess.
Me: Oh, that’s right. It must have been that other 9-year-old who lives in our house.
9-year-old: Yeah. Probably.
Me: Did you even hear what I said?
9-year-old:
Me:
9-year-old: Wait.
I get it. It’s really fun to be a kid, especially when kids are permitted to play. But, unfortunately, there is such thing as a bed time, and if my kids are going to make it to bed at a semi-decent hour, we have to have routines and schedules.
So it is that we keep on keeping on, We keep telling them the same things every night, keep reminding them that it’s not play-with-LEGOs time and it’s not jump-on-the-couches time and it’s not plunge-the-toilet time (actually, there’s not even a time like that in our house, 4-year-olds) and it’s not draw-in-notebooks time and it’s not technology time and it’s not run-around-like-crazy-people time and it’s not change-your-clothes-again time and it’s not need-a-snack time. Those things (or at least some of them) have a place in our schedule. That place is not this minute.
I’m not sure what causes this forgetfulness. I suspect it has something to do with wishful thinking. It’s like how, when a parent no longer has a 3-year-old, she forgets how excruciating it was to raise a 3-year-old and has another baby, because surely this one will be different (they’re all pretty much the same). We varied up the routine once. And kids are really, really good at remembering That One Time and forgetting Every Other Time. The exceptions, especially when they’re fun, become the norm in their minds. So, I don’t know. I might not even want to uncage that beast.
Just about every night, Husband and I will look at each other and say something along the lines of, “Really? They don’t know it’s time for chores, even though we do this every night?” But here’s something I’ve tried to remind myself in those perplexing moments: This is called Being a Kid. I remember being a kid and hoping that, just this once, the rules would be different and I could ride my bike out on the street, because I was now in third grade and knew how to watch for cars, and then I’d just do it, because my logic, even then, was about on par with a deer trying to decide whether he wants to cross the street or stay put. My kids clearly got it from somewhere.
So maybe tonight I’ll give them a night off. Maybe we’ll all eat outside and won’t worry about sweeping or wiping off tables, because nature does that pretty well. Maybe we’ll let them take a swim suit shower out on the back deck and read stories while they jump on the trampoline and then carry them all up to their beds when it’s time.
What’s life without a few surprises?
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
I used to care a whole lot about EVERYTHING. And I mean, everything. I was quite a terrorist, if you ask Husband and my firstborn. I used to care what people thought about me and my parenting choices. I used to care about what my kids looked like, because, of course, they always had to be dressed impeccably—in the right shoes and the right shirts and the right pants, with their hair combed just so, because people needed to know we were killing it as parents of six. I used to care about getting places on time and how we looked walking the streets of our city and what my kids’ behavior said about me.
I know better now.
My kids are their own people, and while I’m the shepherd who guides them in their journeys, they are not exact replicas of me (nor would I want them to be. I’m far from perfect, too.).
What I have realized in my years of parenting is that I often care too much about what the people think. So I’ve resolved to stop caring. Here are the top things I will stop caring about:
1. I don’t care what you think about how many children swarm around me and call me Mama.
We get a whole lot of stares when we’re out in public, and we’re out in public a lot, because we like doing things together as a family. And I get it. We have a lot of kids, and they’re all boys. We’re quite a sight to see, honestly. I’ve started telling myself that people are staring at us because they’ve never seen boys so well behaved. But every now and then, someone walks up to shatter that perception, because the judgement is practically dripping from their eyes, and if it wasn’t dripping from their eyes, I would find it pretty quickly in the tone they use to say these words: “These all yours?” We’ll politely say, yes, they all belong to us. “My God,” they’ll say. “Ever heard of birth control?” or something along those no-filter lines, at which point we’ll walk away, because our kids deserve better than that. They really are good boys, and they don’t need to know how ugly the world can be just yet.
So I’ve stopped caring about what people think of my choice to have half a dozen kids. You can think what you want. You can think I’m ruining the planet because I’m contributing to overpopulation. You can think I’m irresponsible and selfish in this irresponsible and selfish choice. You can think it’s just a waste of space in our society. You can think I’m crazy or ignorant or unschooled or back woods or ridiculously ridiculous. I don’t even care.
2. I don’t care if you could never imagine yourself doing what I do on a daily basis.
Recently I read an essay urging the moms of the Internet to stop being so sensitive to the things that people say to them. Maybe it’s true that sometimes we get a little sensitive about the things people say. But I like to think that I can always tell when people mean well and when they don’t. There’s something in the eyes. I’ve always been good at reading the eyes, because I was a political reporter for a while, and I got really good at spotting the liars and the judgmental and the hostile. There’s always something in the eyes.
The ones who mean well, there’s a lot more forgiveness and grace for them, in my book. Go ahead. You can joke with me about how I have a basketball team with a sub or how I must have been going for a girl or how there are so many of them, everywhere, you can’t get away from them because I can see in your eyes that you mean well and you’re actually quite delighted.
But the ones who don’t mean well, they should just stop talking.
It’s often that we will hear from people, “I don’t know how you do it.” Mostly it’s said out of admiration, but every now and then, there’s a crazed person who makes a beeline for our family when we’re crossing the Alamo Plaza in the great city of San Antonio, just so they can say, “I can’t imagine having that many kids,” and look at our kids like they’re some kind of monsters who will take over the planet and eat the brains of all the much-more-capable-and-desirable adults.
Call me crazy, but I’m not a big fan of my boys standing in front of a person who makes them feel like there’s something wrong with who they inherently are, just because there are six of them. The oldest is getting old enough to pick up on this scorn. But you know what? I don’t care anymore if you think you could never imagine yourself doing laundry for six kids every week or teaching six kids every day or feeding six kids every hour. I don’t care if you think I was a nutcase for choosing this kind of life for myself. I don’t care. Shut your mouth and move along. This is family time. Not let’s-see-what-a-stranger-thinks-about-all-these-children time, despite what you may think.
3. I don’t care if the way my kids are dressed makes them look like orphans.
My kids dress themselves. That means many times, they don’t have matching shoes or they’re wearing one flip flop and one tennis shoe, because their solution for “I can’t find my other Iron Man tennis shoe” is to leave one tennis shoe on and let the other foot carry green flip flop. They have holes in their jeans, because they walk on their knees half the time. They have unbrushed hair, because they can’t be bothered to put a comb through their tangles, and I’m too busy feeding a baby or cleaning up another glass of spilled milk or hugging a 4-year-old. They have smudges on their faces, because they’re like magnets for dirt.
All of this doesn’t mean we don’t take good care of them. It just means kids get to dress however they want (with gentle suggestions from Mama and Daddy) and deal with the consequences of their choices. Like shorts in 40-degree weather.
So I don’t care what other people think about what my kids look like. I don’t care if you think we’re not taking care of them or if you wonder whether we’re those crazy people who don’t bathe our kids every day (we don’t). I don’t care if you think I’m a negligent mother (I’m not) or if you think I have no style (not much) or if you think they just get to run around like hoodlums outside (yeah, mostly).
4. I don’t care what you think my kids’ behavior says about me.
It’s amazing to me how much people forget about the day in, day out battles of raising children. I’ve heard already-raised-their-kids parents rake younger parents over the coals, because their kids never had a tantrum, and even if they did, it was only once, because blah blah blah. Whatever.
So my kid had a tantrum. Stop giving me the stink-eye. So my kid won’t stop whining and it’s super annoying. So my kid didn’t want to leave the park and kicked some of the mulch, and it got in his twin brother’s eye. Yeah, that’s not allowed, but you know what? It happens. Emotions can’t always be controlled perfectly. And just because I understand that doesn’t mean he’s not gong to deal with the consequences of his actions, but it does mean that I’m going to first empathize with my kid about how hard it is to leave a park when we’re having fun. Mind your own business and let me take care of it.
I don’t care if you think I’m too strict. I don’t care if you think I’m too lenient. I don’t care if you think I’m probably not the best one for this job. I don’t care. I’ll parent my kids however I want to parent them, because I’m the one who knows them best. I know their tendencies and their struggles and their pitfalls, and, most of all, I know their hearts. You don’t, in your one glance my way.
I don’t care what other people think about us anymore. I don’t care if you hate families and despise children, because you think they have nothing to offer the world. I know who we are, and I know who my kids are, and I know how much value they have to offer, and I know that they will one day change this world they’re living in.
That makes me glad I have six of them to raise.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
Kids have amazing imaginations. They can listen to a story and ask to see the pictures, even though there are no pictures to see, because their brains are constantly working out what it is they’re seeing in the words. They’re able to imagine things like a cross between Batman and SpongeBob Square Pants, which we’ll call Squatman for our purposes, and they’re able to imagine what they’d like for dinner instead of this nasty spaghetti squash, and they can efficiently imagine a better world without parents like us telling them to go to bed and put those LEGOs away and eat all their vegetables.
But sometimes their imaginations can come back to bite them. Say, when they’re in trouble and they are locked in an erroneous belief system.
Here are some of the most ridiculous things that kids believe:
1. They’ll never find out.
Every day, when I lay my twins down for naps, I post up a spot right outside their room, mostly because they cannot be trusted, even at 4 years old, to be in their room by themselves. Sure, we’ve cleared it of everything but beds and blankets and pillows, but I tried it out last week, that leaving them alone for nap time, because Husband and I were trying to design a book cover for a new book release, and they managed to pile their blankets and pillows on the floor of their closet, and, even though all the clothes are hung fifteen feet in the air, pulled down all their brother’s 12-month clothes and tried to squeeze into every shirt.
What I’ve noticed about my twins is they believe that if I’m not in the room with them, I’ll never know what they’ve done. If I so happen to leave my post for a minute, because I’ve finished a passage of the book I wanted to read and I’m going to get another one, they will sneak on silent feet out of their room and into their brothers’ room. They won’t even have the foresight to shut the door, so when I come back out, there they are standing by their oldest brother’s desk, next to the forbidden art supplies he got for Christmas. They’ll look at me like a deer in the headlights and go completely motionless, as if maybe I won’t see them if they stand perfectly still.
Kids believe that if we’re not right there with them, we’ll never know what it is they’ve done. Well they’re wrong. I know every time, kids. I know when you pee off the side of the van because you think it’s a great idea; and I know when you’ve had a couple of extra treats, even if you round off that cookie so it looks like a mouse has nibbled the sides of it; and I know when you sit down and stand up and when you’re awake and asleep. I’m like Santa Claus on steroids. I have eyes everywhere. So don’t even think about it.
2. If I can’t see you, you can’t see me.
So many times this has happened. The twins are in their room, I’m sitting right outside their room, but I’m hidden behind the crib, and they can’t see me. So they think that means I can’t see them. I get a kick out of this, because they’re usually headed into the bathroom to try to find another tube of that yummy mint toothpaste they ate this morning. I’ll let them come all the way out, still oblivious to my presence, and when they’re dead even with me, I’ll call out their name. They’ll startle and go screaming back to their room.
Gotta do what you gotta do. Natural consequences and all.
3. Even though we’ve done the same thing every night for the last six years of my life, tonight is probably different.
This is just ridiculously ridiculous. We run our house on a strict routine. Every single night we have dinner time and after-dinner-chores time and bath time and then story time and then mama-reading-a-chapter-book-out-loud time and then silent reading time and then prayer time and then snuggle time and then bed time. We’ve done this every single night since the oldest was born nine years ago. And still the boys seem to think that somewhere in there is a jump-on-the-couches-naked time and a play-freeze-tag-in-the-house time and a throw-books-in-the-air time. Nope. That’s never been a part of the routine, kids. Get back in your chairs, open your books and read.
4. If I complain/scream/whine enough, I’ll get exactly what I want.
You know what complaining/screaming/whining actually makes me want to do? It makes me want to take away anything I’ve ever given my kid in the first place (life being the exception. I don’t want to take away their lives). Doing it longer or louder or more annoyingly is only going to guarantee that the crazy will come unleashed. And I can’t be held responsible for whatever happens when the crazy is unleashed. Whoops. Sorry I just threw away all your LEGOs. You were complaining too much about how all your friends have the newest Minecraft set and how you really think, because you’re so great at school and all, that you should be able to get the new one, too, and can I take you to the store right this minute so I can buy you the latest $90 set?
Whining/screaming/complaining doesn’t work.
5. Making myself into a boneless puddle means they’ll let me stay at the park longer.
“Let me stay at the park” could be replaced with anything a kid wants. It’s just that the park experience happened more recently than anything else.
You know, we get these crazy ideas sometimes, like, “Hey, let’s a have a picnic out at the park and so the boys can play after they’re done eating.” Which ends up more like, “Hey, let’s have a picnic out at the park so we can drag one of the boys kicking and screaming away from the slide he wanted to go down one more time.”
With six boys, it’s highly probable that I’ll have at least one of them who’s not ready to leave the park when it’s time to go home. It doesn’t matter if we’re going home to eat dinner or if we’re going to another friend’s house for a playdate or if we’re doing something fun like seeing a movie and we’re going to be late if we don’t leave right this minute. They’re not ready to leave, so they’re going to collapse into a boneless puddle, at which time their daddy or I will drag them to the car, trying to ignore the way the asphalt is tearing at their jeans—not so much because we’re concerned about scraping their knees (natural consequences and all) but because those jeans still have to make it through one more kid.
What turning into a boneless puddle really means is that I get to work on my strength training for a second time today, and, also, we’re not coming to the park again for at least a year.
6. That’s not going to hurt me.
There are so many times this comes into play when you’re the parent of boys. But the one that sticks out most, right now, today, is when my boys are sliding head-first down our stairs, just for the fun of it. When the stairs snap into their rib cages, they shout their laughter, and they can’t stop. It’s the most hilarious thing ever, apparently, to have a rounded bit of wood jab into their internal organs and bruise them from the inside out. I watch this, horrified, from the bottom of the stairs. Someone is going to break something, but they are disturbingly unafraid. They have no idea how much it will hurt if this little slide goes wrong.
This erroneous thought also drives them to play bounce-wrestling games on the trampoline and ride bikes without helmets and soar down our cul-de-sac hill lying flat on a skateboard.
7. Vacuum cleaners can suck you up (or other crazy terrors).
When our oldest was little, around 3, he was scared of the vacuum cleaner. He would have nightmares and tell us all about them. In his nightmares, there was such thing as a vacuum cleaner that could suck up a person, and he was terrified that our vacuum cleaner would come into his room in the middle of the night and suck him up inside it. The vacuum cleaner could not be anywhere near his bedroom or he would spend sixteen hours awake instead of sleeping. We could not turn it on without one parent being very near him so that he could clutch an arm or a leg or whatever appendage may be closest. Ear, eye, lips. Didn’t matter. As long as he was assured someone was there protecting him.
I remember being more terrified of escalators than a vacuum cleaner, but maybe that’s just proof that I need to get my kids out more.
Fortunately, as kids grow older, they give up these ridiculous beliefs. They learn better. They do better.
So maybe it’s cute while it lasts. Or something like that.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
My house hears so many words. If these walls could talk, they would never, ever stop—because my kids never, ever stop, either.
I’m in the word business. I write for a living. I’m used to sorting through words all day, and I’m used to hearing a running commentary in my brain. But if one were to spend three seconds of time in my living room, one might think that being in the word business also means being in the listening-to-kids-talk-all-over-each-other business, because that’s clearly what my kids believe. Someone is always talking. Someone else is always talking over the first one. And then someone else is always talking all over that noise. I go through a system malfunction every ten minutes.
Even though I’m in the word business, I use few of them to communicate verbally. This probably comes from my journalistic training. When I need to say something, I say it succinctly and clearly and leave it at that. None of my kids got this trait. Every one of them inherited the communication style of my husband, which is rambling and sprawling and way too many words for not enough time. When one of the boys (or the man) in my house starts talking, I could catch the first couple of sentences, go out back and mow the entire yard and come in and not have missed a thing, because everything in the middle was just “thinking out loud.” All I need from them is the intro and the conclusion, and I’m set. I know exactly what needs saying.
Now. This is not to say that I am not very, very glad that my kids enjoy talking to me, because the oldest is turning double-digits in November and I know that the days of talking for hours are about to come to a close, and I’m going to be begging him to talk to me soon. So I always try my best to wear a straight face, keep focused eyes trained on their face and give the proper responses to let them know I’m listening (even if I’m not). This was also acquired in my journalistic training, when I would conduct interviews with people who would tell me all about their nephew who’d been put in prison for embezzling the funds of his stepfather rather than telling me about the hand-carved chess set he’d made for the International Chess Tournament, which is why I was there (I have one of those faces, I guess. And I’m also really good at listening. Or am I?).
But when my 9-year-old starts telling me about how he traded this one Pokemon card to get another Pokemon card and how he’s really glad that his friend had this one that he’s been trying to find for a while and how he’s going to keep saving his money so that he can make sure he has enough money to have it for a new package of Pokemon cards, or maybe he’ll buy the 15-card pack, no maybe he’ll just save up for the 100-card pack, and this is what you have to look for when you’re trading Pokemon cards, energy power and the exact fighting power and evolution pieces, and do you want to know how many Pokemon cards he has right now? my teeth start falling asleep.
This kid will hijack a whole afternoon if you mention the words “LEGO Minecraft” or “What do you want for your birthday” or “Pokem—” (you can’t even finish that one before he’s off and running). He’ll follow you around while you’re changing the baby’s diaper and while you’re stirring soup on the stove and while you’re pouring all the milk and setting the table, back and forth, back and forth, like an extra appendage I keep tripping over. He won’t stop talking until all his brothers come crashing to the table and he can no longer talk over the voices vying for attention, and we all just give up on having conversation until they’re actually shoveling food in their faces.
Get the 6-year-old started on talking about what he did in school today, and he’ll tell you what he did and what all his classmates did, too, because he’s the kind of kid who notices everything, and you’ll never get a word in edgewise until you ask him if he wants a fruit dessert tonight, okay, then, start eating your dinner.
And then there’s the 5-year-old telling me about all the ways he could have killed himself today, because he’s the daring one in the bunch, who hangs upside down off the monkey bars and tries to jump over a 15-foot fence while bouncing on the trampoline. I’d rather not hear what he has to say.
My kids get better with practice. They’re so skilled now at beginning to talk about one thing and ending up on another subject entirely that I don’t even feel bad about getting lost along the way anymore. It’s anyone’s guess how we got here.
Because one kid can use up a billion words in one “quick” answer to a question, I’ve settled into a bit of a habit lately. I’m well aware that it’s not a good habit. But it’s one that keeps me sane, until we can figure out how to slow down the word vomit rocketing straight from their brains out their mouth. When one of my kids opens his mouth and I know it’s going to be a while before he closes it again, I find myself daydreaming a little. (I don’t miss much, because I could say in 40 words what they say in 15,000. So I don’t feel so badly.)
My daydreams go a little something like this.
What would it be like to have a clean house?
I wonder if we could budget in a house cleaner this month. Geez, I would have to clean up the house before I even let anyone come clean it. Look at that sink. Disgusting. What kinds of pigs live here? I don’t even want to think about the bathrooms upstairs. Someone would come here and walk right back out, because it would be too hard to get a house like this one clean. They wouldn’t be able to offer their money-back guarantee. It’s probably too far gone for eco-friendly supplies, too. I wonder if any of my friends have a good recommendation for a good house cleaning serv—
That sounds like he’s finishing up. Time for me to pay attention.
I wish it were the weekend.
I’m so glad Mom’s taking the kids this weekend. It will be so nice to sleep without six other bodies in the house. All these words. Sheesh. Are they ever done with words? Maybe I’ll have some time to just lie on the bed and read without anybody wanting anything from me. Yeah, right. That’s a dream that will never come true. I wonder what they’ll do at Mom’s. Probably play out in the dirt piles, which means I’ll have to wash their shoes again, because they’ll bring it all home, and the detoxing time. I forgot about the detoxing time. I’m going to have to add that into my schedule next week. It’s always a pain getting them back on the schedule. I’m not going to think about that right now. They’ll be nightmares, but I’ll be coming off a blissful no-kids weekend.
“That sounds interesting,” I’ll say, because I’ve noticed that a boy is finishing up.
Someone please send me to bed.
I’m so tired. All these words make me more tired. I have a word limit, and I reached it half an hour after they got home from school. I need a break. What time is it? Five more hours. The bed is going to feel so nice.
(At this point, my eyelids start drooping, and I require a pinch, which I fully recognize and execute efficiently enough to make my eyes water. The boys hardly ever notice their mama is almost crying during their story about how they did 98 consecutive jumps over the jump rope in P.E. (That’s the gist, anyway. It’s not anywhere close to that concise.)
We should learn sign language.
We really should. I bet that would keep my attention better, and, bonus, they wouldn’t use so many words, because it would actually be work. This is a brilliant idea.
“I think we should learn sign language,” I say, interrupting the 5-year-old reading me an Elephant and Piggie book to demonstrate all the new words he knows now (He’s been telling me about them for the last half hour).
Well, you know, it’s not foolproof. I don’t always get it right. But then I just bring it around to a lesson. “Remember how you interrupted Daddy when he was trying to talk to me earlier this morning? That’s exactly how it feels. I was just trying to show you.”
Works every time.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
Dear Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, my fellow Adult Americans, and, especially my two parents, sitting over there, shaking their heads:
Today marks the end of the third year I’ve been alive, and let me just tell you, this year is going to be hell. Sorry for the dirty word, Mama and Daddy, but I’m so not joking. Buckle up, because here I come.
I understand that because this is my third birthday, you’ll be going out of your minds over the course of the next year, but I’m just going to tell you, I got this. I know everything about everything, and so you can just stop trying to teach me the proper way to do things according to you. I know how to do EVERYTHING myself.
I know how to put on a jacket, even though you say I put it on inside out and upside down, Mom. You don’t know what you’re talking about. The hood is supposed to be on my booty. Just let me do it. I also know how to put on my shoes, even though you say I put them on the wrong foot. The toes are supposed to point out. That’s the way everybody wears them. You obviously don’t know anything.
I especially know how to plunge a toilet, so please stop trying to hide the plunger from me. Trust me. I know what I’m doing.
I hope we can work together this year on pretty much nothing, because I want to be the one who does everything. By myself. You want to help me into the car? Nope. I will walk back to the place you started helping me, and I will do it myself. Put my shoes on the right foot? Nope. I will take them back off and put them on the way I had them, because I will do it myself. Help me cross the street safely? Nope. I WILL DO IT MYSELF!
Don’t worry. I’ll go a little easy on you, at least when you’re sleeping. Wait. On second thought, that’s probably the time when I will attempt everything I shouldn’t do when eyes are watching, because everyone’s asleep, and what better time to sneak into the bathroom and drink a whole vial of Peace and Calming essential oil? What better time to sneak downstairs and drag a kitchen chair across the floor so I can reach the pan of brownies I saw you put in the microwave for safe keeping last night? What better time to pick a lock on the front door? You don’t even know what I’m capable of. But I’m about to show you. Oh, yes I am.
We are living in a time of extraordinary change—change that is reshaping you but is keeping me the same, because, you know, I’m perfect just the way I am. But you, you need to change. You especially need to stop telling me I need to get in the car 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. You need to stop telling me the orange plate is not clean when it’s the only plate I want to use today. And you need to remember that I like the green car grocery cart on Tuesdays and the red car grocery cart on Fridays. I don’t know why you can’t keep it all straight, because it’s the same two colors every week. Except when it’s yellow or blue. So you: change. Me: stay the same.
We’ve been through extraordinary change before. Remember when I first climbed out of my crib, and me and my twin brother would play with our poop and leave you a really nice painting on our walls and clothes and faces? You didn’t think you were going to make it out of that time alive, did you? And look at you now. You’re still alive, I’m still alive, we’re all still alive. And I will do greater things yet, and you will survive them, too.
You know, what was true then can be true now. All you have to do is let me do what I want, with no repercussions. This is really how kids want to live, you know, and it doesn’t matter what their parents say, this is actually the best way to live. Let us do whatever it is we want to do. If we want to take a black Sharpie marker and draw a lion’s mane on our face, let us. If we want to wear our 1-year-old brother’s pants in the dead of winter, let us. If we want to play with the cars instead of trains, but the trains are out and scattered everywhere, just let us play with the cars, too. Cleaning up is no fun, and we should never have to do it, ever again. That’s the first law I’d like passed.
Remember, it’s my spirit that has made the last three years so fun. You used to say that I had a lot of spirit. Well, it’s about to be a whole lot more, because I just figured out that I know how to take the toilet paper roll off the dispenser thingy, and now I will never tire of throwing the brand new toilet paper roll in the toilet and watching it curl at the edges. It always plugs up the toilet when I try to flush down the evidence, but that’s okay. I know how to plunge a toilet, remember?
You face some choices right now. Will you believe that I know what I’m doing, or will you constantly try to thwart me? I can tell you what I’ll do if you thwart me. I’ll cry at the top of my lungs for half an hour to the tune of “I dinnent have our lunch” so all the people in the park will stare at you. I’ll say I hate you and sometimes I’ll even hit or kick or bite to get my point across, because you’re unreasonable people, you parents. I’ll dump out a whole container of shape blocks, and I’ll throw a car across the room so it dents a wall and I’ll slam the door so the walls shake and your favorite picture falls down and breaks. That’s why you should never thwart me. Learn from your mistakes and move on, and we’ll all be that much happier. Me, especially. Which is all that really matters.
So let’s talk about some of the problems we have. First, there is you. And then there’s you. And then there is…you.
I know this isn’t easy. You always say that nothing worth doing is ever easy. You never know what you’re going to get when I get out of bed in the morning. Is it the clever one or the devilish one or the argumentative one or the loving one or the sad one or the angry one or the millions of other versions of myself? But I can promise you that in more than a year, when I am no longer 3, you will be so glad that time marches on, because it means I won’t stay 3 forever.
It will get better. I mean, no it won’t. Because I’m still here. But I’m clear-eyed and big-hearted and undaunted by challenge. You’ll still love me when this year is over.
Thank you. God bless me. God bless me, and God bless…me.
