Should I be worried... 2nd edition

This could become a regular post on my blog.  I am constantly asking myself if I should be worried about the odd things my kids do.  Of course, I think I'm going to write a book about how children hit all the major types of mental illness as they grow.  It'll be a best seller for sure and change the way child psychology is viewed.

• Baby happily hitting the same dangly toy over and over and over again?  OCD.
• 2-year-old laughing, then crying, then peaceful, then screaming?  Manic depressive.
• 5-year-old LOVES gym class and has the best time ever but the next week hates gym class and cries to go home? Schizophrenic.

See? As an adult it's a mental illness.  In a child it's a "developmental phase".

But I digress.


Should I be worried of weird phobias? 

A couple times now, in the middle of happily eating bacon Belle will suddenly put down the bacon and say, with a very concerned face, "Mommy, I don't like bacon.  It really scares me."

'Cause I kind of am.

Scared of bacon?  I'm scared of people who don't like bacon.  I love bacon.  Will I still love her if she doesn't?  I don't know.  Probably, but I can't be sure.

Should I be worried that I yell at the kids too much?  

Dalton told his sister the other day, "You don't yell at me!  Only Mommy and Daddy yell at me!"

'Cause I'm not.

I mean, I'd like to yell at them less, but D seems to think it's perfectly fine that I do it, so why stop? 

He looks innocent, doesn't he...

Should I be worried that there is yet another baby-related game going on? 

This one is called "Napping" and it consists of one child putting their head down (while never giving any other sign that the game has begun) and when the other one speaks the first one looks up and yells, in as crabby of a voice as possible, "Don't wake me up! I'm napping!" 

'Cause I'm not.

Well, I'm not terribly worried about the game.  Yes it shows that I am horribly crabby about them waking the baby from his nap, and that may not be a part of my personality that I want to see mirrored, but I really don't want them to wake him up.  So any reinforcement of that idea is good, right? 

And besides, there's an aspect of the game that is funny.  Belle refuses to close her eyes when she's the 'napper.'  When Dalton points this out and says, equally crabbily,"You were not napping.  Your eyes were open." She show in her response that she still believes something firmly that I thought she had grown out of.  "Dalton," she replies condescendingly, "I always sleep with my eyes open." 

Months ago she first informed me of this and when I told her that everyone sleeps with their eyes closed she said, "Yup.  Everyone but me.  And Dalton."  But then she dropped it for a long time.  Until the napping game started.  Then last night when I went in her room 90 minutes after I'd put her to bed to tell her in my most intimidating mommy voice that she needed to "lay down, be quiet, close her eyes and GO TO SLEEP," she replied, "No."  Then she must have seen my unhappy face (see last post) because she quickly continued, "I sleep with my eyes open."  

(Deep breath) Fine.  Lay down, be quiet, leave your eyes open and GO TO SLEEP!

Here she is, clearly fast asleep.

Should I be worried that Liam might not be the cutest baby in the world?

Nope.

"Unhappy" faces

Belle started a new pastime around the house.   She started squinting her eyes and pursing her mouth and saying, "This is Daddy's unhappy face," meaning the face he gives her when she's about to get in trouble. 

Needless to say the game immediately caught on.

Apparently their dad and I have very different unhappy faces.

Belle's "Daddy's unhappy" face:

 

Dalton's  "Daddy's unhappy" face:

Belle's "Mommy's unhappy" face:

 Dalton's "Mommy's unhappy" face:

And of course once the camera came out and Dalton got wound up,

he decided that Mommy's unhappy face really looked more like this:

I wish. That's way more intimidating than the whole wide-eyed thing.

Highs and Lows - Daylight savings edition

I was just thinking that when I classify my highs and lows they are always from my perspective (since I'm the beautiful, glowing center of my own universe... and I can prove that because my incredible gravity makes my kids want to be right at my feet all day long) when in reality one man's high is another man's low.  Or in my case, one kid's high is a mother's low. 

So here's an effort to be more inclusive in my approach to highs and lows...

High for kids - Low for Mommy

The doughnut:
One morning D and Liam and I were up hanging out together.  D was eating a sprinkled doughnut (excited about how he didn't have to share it with Belle, even though it was the last one), Liam was chillin' on the floor and I zipped upstairs to get Belle up.  Two minutes later I came back down and D was looking sweetly at Liam from his perch up at the table.

D: "Did you say it is alright if Liam eats sprinkled donuts?"

Me: "No, sweetie.  Liam only has milk.  Nothing else at all.  He's too little to eat a doughnut.  But it was nice of you to think of sharing."

Then D gave me that look.  The one where he's dying to tell me something but suspects that whatever it is might get him in trouble.  And he looked at his doughnut - and he looked at Liam - and then back at his doughnut.

Me (looking with growing alarm at my two month old): "DID YOU ALREADY GIVE HIM SOME OF YOUR DOUGHNUT?!!?!?!"

D (looking a little nervous): "Um....yes."  (But trying to dig himself out of the hole he senses he is in) "I gave him a bite from the really good part right here in the middle where there's lots of icing and sprinkles."

Me (looking back and forth between the completely calm baby on the floor and my eldest son) "Really?  You really gave him a bite of icing and sprinkles?"

D (starting to speak patiently to me like I'm a little slow and pointing at his doughnut): "Yes, from right here."

Me (sort of baffled): And Liam ate it?

D (now looking at me like he's sure I'm crazy): Yup

Me:  You SAW him eat it?  Because Liam can't eat something like that.  He doesn't know how to.

D: Yup, I saw sprinkles in his mouth.

Me:  Liam, open your mouth, baby! (Which, by the way he did, immediately.  Can you say baby genius?)

And I have to say I saw no sign whatsoever that my two month old just ate some sprinkles and icing.  No funny colored tongue or drool.  No sprinkle bits in a mouth that has NO IDEA how to eat something like icing and sprinkles.  But D swears he ate some. 

So, a High for the boys because:

1. The boys were smiling sweetly at each other like best friends.
2. My son at least intended to share the best part of his doughnut voluntarily with his baby brother.

But firmly in the Low category for me because:

1. I swear my son knew not to feed anything to the baby so the amount of worry this opens up in my life is huge.  

High for Mommy - Oh, never mind, Low for Mommy

Daylight savings time! 

An extra hour of sleep!  Yippee!!

Oh no, wait.  I have kids and a baby who show complete disregard for the clock on a regular basis.  Dang.  

So lots of other people get an extra hour sleep but I don't.  Crap.  May you all be up for various trivial and irritating reasons tonight. 

High for Mommy - and no one else cares - which is what makes it a high.

Awake for the crack:
Medman is on a rotation where he has to be at the hospital at a hair past the butt crack of dawn.  Actually, it would have been a hair past the butt crack of dawn in the middle of the summer.  Now, even with daylight savings it's still half a cheek before the butt crack of dawn.  But ANYWAY... he has to be up and so I decided to get up too.  Normally being up this early is not good, but I have to say that Liam has been sleeping ok til around 7ish, so suddenly Mommy has an hour or two of absolute peace and quiet.  It's fantastic.  Weirdly unsettling but fantastic.  And since Medman is ready for bed at about, oh 5:45 every night, I'm still getting "good sleep."  And since Liam turned 12 weeks old this week, I'm thinking that soon I may even get to stop putting quotations around the words "good sleep".