Light Refreshments Served

Hugh’s taken to answering the phone at our house, which is really unusual because, up until now, I’m the only one in our family who doesn’t loath the phone. Whenever the phone rings, I know that everyone is ignoring it, like white noise in the background, or my demands to “put your shoes IN the shoe box, not just beside it!” We hear what we want to hear (Wait! What was that sound? Donuts coming out of the bakery at Day’s Market?)

I got this handwritten letter from Phoebe, who has discovered the lost art of letter writing. In its purest form, we find little notes all over the house. Like last night, when I climbed the stairs to go to bed, I found a note reminding me to cut her toenails. I’m always forgetting that, the letter reasoned. This one is warning me about the dangers of not properly monitoring Hugh:

It reads: “Mom, someone called and Hugh picked up the phon(e) and we told Hugh to give it to us but Hugh didn’t and stol(e) it from us and then the person that called hanged up. P.S. DON’T LET HUGH GET THE PHON(E)!

As mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been using January as a month with the theme to gut it out. I overdid it one day, so the next day I sought to bring balance to the force by -gasp- taking a nap. And that’s when I got the strongly-worded letter.

And so if you worried that I’m feeling pretty good about myself now that my closets and corners are all cleaned out, don’t worry. Remember, mothers everywhere, take any credit and sense of accomplishment where you can get it. And then cling to it. Like Hugh clung to that phone and wouldn’t give it back.

Scene: The middle of a kitchen. Mom is busy picking up, wiping down, and putting away. Hugh, a precocious four year-old, stands frozen in the middle of the room like the tin man in the Wizard of Oz–head cocked to the side, arms bent and out in the front. From the small corner he says, in a squeaky voice:

Hugh: I’m a root beer statue.

Mom: What?

Hugh (still frozen): I’m a root beer statue. Put root beer in me and I will dance.

Mom: I told you before. You’re not getting root beer–it’s 10 in the morning!

Hugh (still frozen, blank expression on his face): Then you won’t see me DAH-ANCE. . .

Mom: Nice try Hugh.

Hugh, walks away slowly, eyes fixed on Mom with piercing intensity, eyebrow raised, as if to say “Until next time, my formidable foe, until next time. . .”

I thought Spring was here. We had a great week weather-wise last week and I got a little cocky. I bought new t-shirts. I considered buying new flip flops! (thank goodness I didn’t spend the $2.99–too soon, too soon!) Silly, silly girl! March is the month when I set myself up for disappointment because I’m so anxious for good weather. I know the rhyme about lion and lamb, but I always forget that it’s supposed to be Spring the entire month, but you could get rain or snow. Or both. At the same time. What does that have to do with a lion or a lamb? What kind of animal can’t make up its mind? A schizophrenic monkey or something like that. Maybe a bi-polar lemur? That’s who rules March. There’s also the whole “beware the ides of March” saying that I didn’t understand until of late, when I realized that three of my five children were born 9 months after March. Too much information? Well, I blame it on March. And, believe me, now I “beware.” I-be-aware.

In Nebraska (the land of my childhood) March is bringing tornado warnings which, although very serious, I recall with warm fuzzy memories. Tonight at dinner I was telling my kids what it was like to have tornado warnings at home. It was cozy and fun. We’d gather together in basements and listen to the radio, listen to the wind, cuddle close in blankets and make mom run upstairs and get our favorite dolls, just in case (Kristen, my cabbage patch doll, in case you were wondering). Once, in high school, I was having a study group when the sirens came on. We all ran out on my wrap-around porch and watched the sky turn green while eating fudgcicles. I’ll never forget the color of the sky during a tornado storm: bright yellow and eerily green the next second. I can remember with nostalgia because a funnel never touched down in my town. I never saw the destruction first hand so it remained romanticized, like Hugh’s love for tornados and all things Wizard of Oz.

March, fittingly, brings Hugh’s birthday. He will be four and his only two requests for his birthday is that 1. he wants a tornado, which he pronounces “tomato,” cake (seriously, how am I going to pull that off?) and 2. no girls allowed. Since Hugh’s my little tornado, leaving scattered, broken toys everywhere he touches down, it seems appropriate he was born in March. He is a force of nature, for sure, but in the romanticized, makes all your dreams come true in the yellow-brick road kind of way.

This morning while I was cleaning the bathrooms, Hugh emptied all of the contents out of Owen’s toy box all over his room, rummaging for candy among the mounds of torn Valentine’s and itsy bitsy pieces of candy wrappers for the fainted whisper of a piece of something sweet. Like a truffle pig, he found a stray lollipop or two and maybe one “Nerd” stuck to the bottom of the box. Later, while vacuuming, he brought me Miles’ water gun, which he admitted he broke. On purpose. “It is all my fault. . .” he said with a fake pout. And still later, but before noon, while on the phone and randomly straightening up, I found that he had emptied out a box of tampons all over his room. Apparently, from what I can gather, he unwrapped them all and then shot out the contents like a cannonball to knock down his superhero friends. I hung up the phone and found him hiding under his bed and told him to stay there for a while. I wandered into the bathroom and noticed he had stuffed toilet paper down the sink.

Who knew socks, clean underwear (I checked), and his sister’s headband would be enough to be an “AWESOME ‘INJA!”

(Kristy, maybe you don’t need to buy that Hilary Clinton mask after all. . .)

So I walked into the bathroom to change into my swimsuit, and I estimate it took me approximately two minutes, max, to put it on.  (It should take me 30 seconds, but there’s a lot of sucking in, tucking in, and avoiding eye contact with the mirror.)  When I came out, I caught Hugh, my own little Napoleon Dynamite, in the following scene.  Hugh, in his tighty-whities, because his latest obsession is to dress “like George of the Jungle” had taken my lovely, uh hum, sturdy nursing bra, opened the adjustable straps, fit each leg inside each side, so that the cups would cradle his bum like a hammock, then took the outside shoulder straps (I know, it took me a while to figure out what he did, too.) and wrapped one on the door handle to my bedroom door.  He took a step back and jumped, snapping himself straight into the door with a loud smack.  When I rushed in to see “what happened this time. . . ” he was tangled up in straps, upside down, screaming, partly because it must have hurt him physically, but mostly because he had hurt his pride:  his plan had been foiled!  I would have taken a picture, but he was screaming so loudly and needed me to untangle my mangled bra to set him free.  And going from a Tarzan-like yelp of hope and victory to a crest-fallen scream of defeat (although audibly funny) is pretty sad.

I knew that adjusting to the new summer schedule would be a little difficult, but not for the reasons I anticipated. For example, I thought the big kids would bug me all day about playing video games, but they’ve been really cool and fun.  They’ve kept themselves entertained, done chores when I asked, and only bug me a little bit about playing video games.  The big ta-dah has been how Hugh, whose life I foolishly assumed was staying pretty much the same, thinks that he’s calling the shots at home.  He’s our own little dictator. This summer we really have created our own little world.  Our own little totalitarian state. 

From the moment this kid wakes up, slamming the door open and yelling “I want BREAKFAST!” to the moment he goes to bed insisting “I need WATER!” he’s ordering something–anything.  He goes around ordering the kids to “Go find my Batman!” and “Go outside and push me on the swings.  NOW!  You can do it!”  ”Give me a popsicle!  NO:  THE GREEN ONE!” The kids were mildly amused by this in the beginning, but now his demands are getting out of hand.  

For example, today I found myself showing the kids how to shuck corn (I’m from Nebraska, so it’s my obligation to teach my children how to be a proper “cornhusker.”  It’s part of their birthright, really). And, naturally, Hugh wanted to do it HIMSELF.  He quickly became annoyed that it wasn’t working so I helped him, carefully handling the corn cob like a ticking bomb lest I would unknowingly offend Hugh in any way. He was, again, naturally angry that I had to help him.  It made him look less powerful, so when I told the kids to give me the corn so I could cook it, he tipped the power scale in his favor by eating the raw corn to spite me.  I told him it would taste better if I cooked it, but the more I insisted, the more he insisted the corn was “delicious.” Oh well, at least it’s a vegetable, right?  So, in the end, I really won, right?

I’ve tried reasoning with him.  That did actually work with a couple of my kids at this developmental stage. I’ve explained to Hugh that eating, say six fruit snacks in ten minutes would make him sick.  He just yells back “No it won’t!”  What does he expect me to say? “Who can argue with a retort like that?  Well played, Hugh.  Well played.”  

I tried giving him more attention, making sure he was eating and sleeping regularly, sticking to a routine, every bit of advice I’ve heard (after-all, this isn’t my first picnic, you know), but nothing affects him.  I have a creepy suspicion that he just delights in power and control.  Like more than a normal three year-old should.  And dealing with Hugh makes me feel like a terrorist negotiator.  I find myself constantly saying things like “Okay, okay, just tell me what you want–don’t freak out!  Stop yelling–let’s just calm down. Let’s just all CALM DOWN!”

I know it’s a phase. I know he’ll grow out of it.  And I try, I really try to be patient, like all the parenting gurus suggest, and “hear him” by echoing his feelings with phrases like “I know it’s hard.  I know you want to eat candy for lunch, but today we’re having sandwiches.”  But it’s getting really hard to pull that off a) with a straight face, b) without sarcasm, or c) without throwing the sandwich.

Good thing he’s so good-looking.