My son the DIVA

There have been so very many changes taking place in my life over the last year that I find it too daunting of a task to recount at this point.  Oh so many changes! So my motivation for starting this here blog back up is actually my beautiful, eldest son, Rodog, the DIVA.

You see over the past few months my son, lets just get back into referring to him as the Rodog shall we?  Anywho, Rodog has been trying desperately to learn how to snap his fingers.  He must have an intense interest in the sharp satisfying sound his fingers make when the very tips rub together in hard, fast manner.  The feeling of the smooth baby prints upon his fingers creating the perfect grip upon each other in order for them to latch on in just a way to crack, to snap.

The reason I mention this small obsession Rodog has acquired is because it has become the core of my amusement over the span of two or three months.  He now has a snap to offer after nearly every sentence he says.  ‘Mom this pizza is delicious’ *Snap.  ‘Avery, stop touching my  toys’ *snap.  ‘I want to go live with daddy because he lets me watch things on tv’ *Snap.

There is such a definitive Diva aspect to his speech now because of that snapping that I am eagerly waiting for the head squiggle back and forth, the lips jutting out in a perfect duck mouth, and those precious little baby fingers snapping their way across his face in a perfect Z shape.  My son the Diva!

Make your Pappy Happy

So in addition to the 30 day green tea challenge, which I must brag, I have been maintaining even though the 30 days has been up for a while, the big man and I decided on a couples challenge as well.  Though originally my idea, it was finally agreed on by him and off we went a running.  The challenge?  Do something, anything, each day for 30 days, to show the opposite partner that they were thought of that day.  A daunting task to say the least.

It started off pretty good as I believe we had built up some ideas over the time it took to finally commit.  And then, it started to take on many faces.  At first I feel like it became a bit of a contest to see who could top the other in considerate actions.  It went rapidly from competition to a chore to be forced into doing, desperate last minute acts or claiming actions as their 'thing' even if they didn't come up with it, such as 'I let you go out for a couple of hours with a friend sans enfant'.  Scam I tell you. Cop out I say.  Though in all honesty, I was not fairing too much better.

Some days we rocked it, some days we failed miserably.  There were even a few days when nothing was done at all.......not naming names or anything............

Eventually, we started off our morning conversations like so... 'if you do the night routine while I go for a run, that can be your thing'.  The negative aspect of this?  The other person does not get a chance to come up with their own act of thoughfulness.  The positive?  They get to find out what is most cherished by the other.  If they could choose their 'thing' from the other person every day, this is what it would look like.

This challenge was, well, challenging.  It had its rewards for sure, but eventually it teetered off and lost its meaning.  Did it bring us closer together?  Nope, not really.  Once the 30 days were up, the days of thinking up nice things to do for each other came to an abrupt halt.  Oh well, on to the next 30 day challenge............hmmm any ideas out there?

Date night, a shared 'Thing'

Green Tea Scam

So, as you know, I have been taking a partial hiatus from my morning coffee over the last couple of weeks.  I have been very vigilant about my green tea in the morning time, and if I have been really good (woken up way to early in the morning) I may indulge in a coffee later in the day.  Not everyday, but some days are just screaming out coffee to me....screaming being the operative word.

Well, aside from the total lack of excitement and eagerness about waking up and smelling the fresh hot mug of steaming............tea, I have noticed that, in the end, the mornings are still looking pretty similar to my caffeinated mornings.  Getting dressed battles, eating breakfast, brushing teeth, leaving the house, getting into the car, walking the dogs, sibling rivalry...battles, battles, battles.................still there.  My reaction, though fairly similar, may be a bit less intense, even a tad more understanding?

Okay okay, I admit, there is more talking it out and less scream fest, patience draining, heart pounding, control loosing, pure banging your head against wall madness.  Green tea is helping.  I really hate to admit it, I love coffee in the morning, it is really the only thing that make get out of bed.  Well that and two extremely persistant boys

So to test an additional theory, I forced Colin to get upwith the boys the other morning and spent that quality time reading in bed.  With the door closed.  Luxuriating to the sounds of, Quiet. Nice. Playtime.  What the fuck?

Turns out, no green tea on earth is going to make these mama's boys any less needy of my attention. Regardless of the amount of time they actually get to spend with me (24/7).  This is not something that is an issue for the big man.  He does not suffer from four little hands pulling at clothing, vying for attention, pushing and pulling at the other one to get more room on the lap.  They play so DIFFERENT when he is the parental sole figure.

This can only mean one thing,

He must now be the morning person from here on in.  Now to tell him this.......

No Coffee for you for a WEEK

The Ro-Dog and myself have been having a few mornings/afternoons/evenings filled with ........ahem.........differences in opinion.

Some mornings I can feel my heart pumping hard in my chest.  My breath catches.  Out of control, out of patience, out of ideas.

When we reach the point where I am yelling and he is laughing maniacally.  When threats, coercion and outright expropriation of all things fun continues to fail.  When I have locked myself up in the bathroom desperately wondering how I will manage the teenage years, a time when he will be a foot taller and hormones are shooting out of his pores, he retaliates.

Screaming as loud as his little four year old lungs can handle, Ro-Dog offers a little browbeating himself.  Taking the only thing that he can think of that I expressly love on a regular basis, he lets me know in no uncertain terms, that I will not be allowed to consume coffee for a whole week.

Normally this results in me stifling my laughter and then finally calming the eff down and figuring out where to go from here, but it always resonates something in me.  Is my madness somehow associated with the high dosage of delicious, milky, sweet nectar of the gods.  Do I feel out of control, because really I am after a LARGE cuppa?

I have recently watched a very short, but mighty inspiring TED talk on the idea of a 30 day challenge. The premise of this is to take on a challenge and stick with it for 30 days, may it be something to forgo, or something to try out for the first time.   Now I have been racking my brain to find a good 30 day challenge for the big man and I to do together in a lame attempt to create some closeness, intimacy, even a little bonding, something we are in desperate need of these days.  But in the end, I wanted to just see if I could test myself first, baby steps. 

So, for thirty days, starting yesterday, I will drink a tall mug of green tea as my first beverage of the day.  Not a total elimination of coffee altogether, just removing it as the first thing I drink in the morning.  So far, I feel pretty good, in fact I haven't had any coffee over the last couple of days.  By no means have I stopped getting angry, but it is less seething and deep breathing, and more........dislike of certain actions.

This could be the beginning of some serious life altering 30 day challenges, may the lack of coffee offer me the inspiration and motivation that had started to slowly trickle through my expanded fingers a scant 5 years ago.................

My two favourite ages

Both boys have now reached what I will officially dub, my two favourite ages.  Ro-Dog, at 4, is much more independent than he ever has been, we are able to have grown up conversations about grown up topics, to a certain extent.  He is so sweet and loving, curious about everything around us.  The normal sounds of why that echoed in my head day in and day out have developed into more specified questions, with a real desire to find the answers.

One unexpected aspect of raising a four year old boy is this rumoured increase, or spike in their testosterone levels.  What was once my sweet gentle angel with unlimited amounts of patience and kisses, has offered us a flip in personality.  One evening spent with family proved that there was a very evident difference in his behaviour.  There was a time when his cousin was a much more energetic and aggressive player, opting for more hands on activities than sit down quiet times, this recent get together proved a total turn around.  The Ro-Dog seemed as if he was on a rampage of aggression, whereas his cousin was the innocent bystandard.  It was strange and super hard to handle.

After trying to find a bit more information on the supposed peak in testosterone levels in 4 year old boys, I also came across a little excerpt about their difficulty hearing at that age.  I am pretty sure that information has changed my life.  When I comment, or sing a sad quiet song about Ro-Dogs broken ears, there is actually truth in it.  Looks like there is going to have to be some more serious parenting book reading in my future, oh and so returns my obsessive research on how the hell you parent!

So four is really great, though very trying at times, and so it goes.

One and a half is also seriously rocking my world these days too.  The words that A-Rcok is now saying is so unbelievably adorable that it melts my little heart every time I hear his little 'Na noo" (the dog we walk in the mornings Manou), oween (Rohan), lory (story) and the list goes on.  Bah, kills me with cuteness. 

Both of these ages have offered me a quiet exhalation.  I feel such a loss of tension as they have reached their respective ages.  They are able to play together, sort of, they are able to be left to their own devices for longer periods of time without fear of stair falls or smothering brotherly 'love'.  You do not realize how shallow your breath is until you feel it go back to normal depth.

 Babies are a bit freaky, they are breakable (not really, in fact I read somewhere that their bones do not solidify until they are toddler (ish) age) they are 100% dependent on you for their survival, a bit daunting if you ask me.  There is a much more relaxed attitude to parenting an infant when you have done it before, but every singe time Ro-Dog reaches a new stage in his life, it is still very very new to me as well.  But we are at a good one now.

I love being a mom of 2 boys, they are pretty great/cuddly/loving. 

Ro Quo's #2

While embarking on a few minutes of shutting my eyes in an attempt at non-parenting, I received a few doozies from the RoDog!

After tickling me under the arm pits with the intent of waking me up I hear Ro exclaim your arm pits are like cactus's ( I will inform him of the pluralization of cactus later, sometime after I shave the cacti).

Still trying his damnedest to get me to stop 'resting my eyes'  he kicks me in the stomach (gently I swear). With an amusement stemmed from years of arm flexing and spinach eating he informed me you don't have stomach muscles at all.  I kept him updated about the toil a couple of babies can take on a mothers body.

After attempting in vain to get him to nap with me I am told that he only naps with daddy.  Now getting angry at my trying to convince him to lay with me he yells you will not have a party in your dreams tonight!  Oh the threats.............

Ro Quo #1

I would like to introduce to you the part of my blog that offers amazingly hilarious/outlandish/outrageous Quotes and conversation from my extremely witty 4 year old.  The Rohan Quotes, or as I will now be calling it The 'Ro Quo'.

Rohan:  Hey mama, have you ever heard of a Flappasaurus?  It has toes on its nose.  Some people think that the Flappasaurus has flaps on his nose, but it actually has toes.  The Flappasausrus has to smell feet all day!

When I later told Colin of this story he was very adamant that this dinosaur really existed and did in fact have toes on its nose...........I am going to need to look that shit up!

So there really is a flappasaurus...........kind of, in cyber world.  It is also a human condition of uncontrollable arm flapping.  Hmmmm I may be breeding a genius......