Everytime I am on the phone...

Every time I answer a phone call,  it's basically a get out of jail free card for my kids.  All bad behavior becomes untouchable, uncontrollable, and unavoidable. This post is about how I handle my children when on the phone.  Imagine a living room devoid of furniture and littered with toys.  It's the witching hour.  Personalities are starting to intensify, no one likes each other right now as we wait impatiently for dinner...the phone rings...like an idiot, I answer it. Let the games begin.

Now that I am distracted, Sedric's pent up man energy gets the best of him, he attacks Rafe.  She falls to the floor with Sedric wrapped around her torso like a sarong.  He bumps his chin on her shoulder in the kerfuffle...its his fault, but he pulls Rafe's hair for punishment for making him (his perspective) bump his chin while he pummeled her and sent her to the ground like a felled tree.  
Rafe is enraged and using her zombie Apocalypse shriek to make her displeasure known.
I have been on the phone for 60 sec at this point and I already have forgotten who I am talking to and from which I deduct: there will be no meaningfully expressed words coming from my end of the conversation today, just randomly muttered "uh-huh's" at any pause in the conversation as I dodge the dead spots in our suburban home while my children evoke each other to murderous rage and mischief.
The kids are in crisis mode.  They begin hoarding food from the pantry.  Sedric has climbed to top cupboard shelves and is liberating the fruit snacks and gold fish.  Our kitchen is raining snack food.  The girls are dancing and singing Sedric's praises below as food adorns their Afros.  I'm running between the living room where the baby is laying on the floor in a sea of toys and the kitchen where the older kids are acting like desert island survivors.  I storm into the kitchen flailing my free arm snapping my fingers and posturing my displeasure with a savage stink eye trying not to interrupt the person (I still can't remember their name) on the phone.  The children scatter...or do they?  I walk back to the living room feeling powerful and in control and naively think I may be able to salvage this conversation after all...NAIVE.  All is quiet...not a good sign.  I get back up off the floor where I am playing with the baby and walk back into the kitchen...the pantry doors are open.  The fruit snacks are missing.  The gold fish are missing...CRAP.  Luck for me, my kids aren't good at covering their tracks yet...I follow the trail of fallen crushed food to the family room where they are sitting behind the couch in the window laughing at their completed caper.  They are munching loudly.  I appear very unexpectedly over the back of the couch.  The children are taken aback.  They are now choking and crying from displeasure and surprise as I rip the snack boxes out of their grubby little hands and throw them back into the pantry.  They are really upset now...hind sight, I should have just fed them and turned the TV on...but, like an idiot, I didn't. 
Peniel begins asking me questions I can't answer for obvious reasons:  I AM ON THE PHONE. She wants to know when we can go to the store to buy ingredients to make perfume and the go to Home Depo to buy metal to make a perfume making machine...I keep shaking my head at her as if to say, "I have no idea!"  She is getting frustrated with me and storms off to gather her thoughts before coming back to assault me with them.  The baby is now beginning to fuss so I pick her up and bounce her.  It's not helping.  I begin to scour the floor with my feet in search of her binky...no luck, so I bounce her faster, she burps and spits up down my shirt and all over the carpet...CRAP.  I have completely forgotten at this point that I am on the phone with someone...I mumble, "dang it!"  under my breath as I accidentally step in the puddle of spit up.  I almost drop the phone in surprise when I hear a concerned person in my ear ask, "is everything ok over there?"  What?  Is that you God?  I lie and say, "Of course everything is fine!  Now, what were you saying?"  The uh-huh conversation resumes.  The baby is demanding her dinner by violently grabbing my shirt and head butting me in the chest...subtle as a train wreck.  Peniel returns.  She has something to say.  She begins telling me how I lied to her last year when I told her I would buy her a canvas so she could paint, and she still didn't have one so I have ruined her dream of being an artist...AND ruined her dream of being a perfume maker...I think she had a picture of herself in her head as a scientist in a white lab coat, wearing goggles brewing and pouring concoctions into a sea of beakers with one hand and painting pictures of horses with her other hand...and I was ruining it all!  I whisper to her, "I'll help you become famous later...but not right now, I'M ON THE PHONE."  Sedric and Rafe paddle into the room and collapse on the floor complaining about wanting dinner.  The room is getting too loud but there is no where to go BECAUSE THEY WILL JUST FOLLOW ME and there are too many dead spots in the quieter places in our home, it's all working against me...the baby is soaking my shirt with baby slime growling at me for her dinner, Peniel is still recounting her grievances, and Sedric and Rafe are whining...and the person on the phone is still nameless!  OY VEY.  I interrupt the nameless person on the phone to express my apologies for being distracted during our conversation only to realize I had stepped into the dead zone and lost the call...CRAP.  The kicker is, I still couldn't remember who I was talking to so I could call them back!!  Oh well, I tried.  I put down the phone in defeat, shake my head and sigh, all the while I am thinking, "I promise to never again answer the phone while the kids are awake." 

It got away from me

I will start this post off with my husbands advice to me today before leaving for work...I was contemplating finishing painting Rafe and Sedric's rooms out loud.  Jack interrupted my A.D.D. multitasking "we just moved into a new house, so I need to decorate" train of thought with this little nugget, "If I were you, I wouldn't do ANYTHING that is gonna increase your stress or make it harder to manage the kids today..."  I filed it away under: NOT GONNA HAPPEN.   I had too much to get done, AND I needed to workout...I smiled, nodded, then shoved him out the door for work.  As soon as he pulled out of the driveway, operation, PERSONAL AGENDA was instated.  I put my workout clothes on naively thinking it meant I would actually workout.  I began barking out orders to the kids about picking up their toys, stop fighting, lower your voice, don't jump off the couch, STOP, STOP, STOP,  yadda, yadda, yadda, etc, etc, etc...you get the picture.  I told them to go play.  They would come into the kitchen to see what I was doing, GO PLAY.  They would ask me to play with them.  NO, GO PLAY.  They would need help with something.  GIVE ME A SEC, I would say.  I decided to tackle internet issues...I decided to tackle cell phone issues, we barely have reception in our new house.  I decided to catch up with friends through text, so my phone was lit up.  I was Pinteresting like mad!  I decided to decorate Peniel's room.  I was half way through a Pinterest project when my son rebelled.  I had shewed him away one too many times...he snapped... I had activated the secret code for meltdown...5...4...3...2...1...MISTAKE.  He threw a fit about everything.  I refused to stop my march toward DIY insanity.  At nap time, between maddening attempts at cutting shapes out of fabric with dull scissors, I chased Sedric up the stairs every 3 minutes whisper yelling at him to stay in his room.  He chased me back down in a fit of defiance.  2 hours of this...I told him no dessert for boys who don't obey.  He didn't care.  I told him no golf clubs for boys who don't obey.  He didn't care.  I told him no cartoons for boys who don't obey.  He didn't care.  I told him no dump trucks for boys who don't obey.  HE DIDN'T CARE.  I had nothing left to leverage, nothing left to take away from him...he had no intention of giving in, he was in it to win it and I still had too many projects going, I didn't want to quit either.  Somewhere in my head, my husband's advice was circling looking for a place to land, but I wasn't ready to clear the landing strip, I wanted my day, my way...I pressed on painting, cutting fabric, cleaning windows, and organizing non essentials.  I was stressed.  Upset.  Unhappy.  Mean.  Sweating, and way too stubborn for a mom of 4 kids.  My day, my way bit me and left a mark.  The day dragged on tediously.  I finally hit my limit while sitting on the floor changing the baby.  It was an hour til dinner.  I had nothing to make.  I had paint under my nails, something sticky stuck to my hair.  Sedric was complaining dinner was taking too long, Peniel was wanting to show me her story she wrote, Rafe was calling for me to help her get her princess dress on, and the baby just wanted me to look at her...I wanted to cry, but I didn't...I looked at the baby, she looked up at me giggling and garnished with spit up...I smiled at her, made a few silly faces, she laughed..that's when it hit me...I LOVE BEING A MOM...so what was I doing?!  Barking orders.  Agendas.  Ultimatums.  Anger.  This wasn't me.  I love playing with my kids, listening to their stories, helping them do dress up, letting them help with projects...I love being happy and nice...today got away from me.  It happens.  It's horrible when it happens, but it happens.  I have a mountain of excuses I can use to justify today, but I'm not going to.  There is no formula for parenting.  No manual.  No advice line.  No frequently asked questions page...some days, it all comes together, some days it all falls apart, and today, it fell apart.  I am glad today is just about over.  I'm glad I redeemed this FALL APART DAY as I hugged and kissed my kids before bed and told them I love them.  I'm glad they hugged me back.  I glad tomorrow is a fresh new day...no projects planned for tomorrow.  Tomorrow, my workout won't happen conventionally, my projects will go untouched or slightly less organized cuz little hands will be helping, my house will be messy, but my kids will be happy and that makes my heart full.

Good Girl Gidget

Our dog has a death wish...she loves our kids so much, she would allow them to torment and torture her all day without harming them.  I don't know how she does it...They pull her tail:  she licks them.  They ride her like Tonto:  she licks them.  They pretend to do dental work on her mouth:  she licks them.  They jump on her while she is chasing rabbits in her sleep:  she licks them.  They explore her nose with a flashlight:  She sneezes on them, THEN licks them...one would think that she would try and avoid the children with all that mishandling, but she doesn't, she purposely positions herself where ever they are, Every.  Single.  Day.  If you were to come to our house, Gidget would be first to greet you, she can't resist new people...visitors are her favorite, especially kid visitors.   Its pathetic when a kid from a non-dog home comes over and is terrified of the slightly over weight, aging kind eyed dog...she looks at them...they scream...she tries to sniff them, they scream.  She wags her tail to reassure them, they scream...that's when she looks at me with eyes that seem to say, "was I bad?"  That's when I look at her, pat her head reassuringly and say, "Good Girl Gidget."  That's when she takes a deep sigh and collapses at my feet and goes dormant while our scared visitors play with her kids.  It's the only time she is separated from her kids...and it depresses her.  The moment our visitors leave, she gets up and finds her children and licks them.  Some days I think she parents my children better than I do.  She has more patience than I do for the loud thud of toys hitting the floor every other second, the constant running laps around the kitchen, jumping off the furniture, spilled food, horrible smells, whining, complaining and crying...lately, all the commotion of moving and having a 2 year old and a 3 year old at odds with each other has me unnerved and short tempered and addicted to the word "NO"...but not Gidget...she sits in the middle of all the raucous, looking at them like they are the sweetest little darlings, even when Sed is using his plastic hockey stick to beat his sister, and Rafe is breaking the sound barrier with her banshie shriek.  Maybe I should just lick my children too?  Gross.  I don't know how she does it...such unconditional, patient love...sometimes outshining the love of a devoted mother...that's when I look at her, pat her head and say, "Good Girl Gidget."
 Parenting small children is a lot of un-glorified work.  It takes a lot of effort and time to teach our kids the things that give roots to their character and stability to their emotions...lots of times I fail to set a good example in this area, I mean, completely fail.  Sometimes I cry out of complete frustration and exhaustion and go into my room to cry unnoticed...the kids continue to play and fight as I slink away, defeated.  Gidget notices.  Moments after sitting down in my room, I hear her toes clicking on the floors as she walks down toward my room.  She pushes the door open with her nose and peers in...she walks over to me and looks at me...that's when she puts her head reassuringly in my lap, nudging my stomach.  I bury my face in her furry neck letting my tears slide down the back of her ears.  She stands there stationary waiting for me to recover...I do, I always do, because I love my life, I love my kids, I love this very challenging season of raising small children...so I wipe my eyes and stand up...that's when I pat her head reassuringly and say, "Good Girl Gidget" and we walk back down the hall toward the children together.  

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