Why can't he stay oblivious?

One of my parental goals this year (apart from reading parenting books, playing with the boys more, refusing to let their attitudes and actions affect my mood and teaching them to read) is to try to find a friend for Roman (not that he will accept whomever I pick, but I at least can facilitate 3 year old introductions) and to invite Deacon's friends over to play more often.

On my walk today I was mulling over a problem and came up with proactively helping Deacon form friendships as a possible solution. You see, my boy is oblivious no longer.

Deacon is a very friendly and sociable child. Some say he is active and rambunctious. Others say he is wild. His dad says he has a good heart. Here is what I say: he loves life and he picks up cues from adult's actions rather than their words. When he is at home with me and his brothers he is calm and will spend hours "reading", being read to and doing puzzles. Yeah, he can hoist the mainstay with the best of them, but he is not out of control. But if you give him "permission" by your actions to be rowdy, then he will be rowdy.

Today he came with me to the grocery store and had half the groceries in bags by the time I had finished paying.

Anyway, before his classes and places where I am not I always carefully remind him that he needs to listen to the teacher, not bug the other kids etc.

He really likes other kids. All other kids. There isn't a kid he doesn't like. He will tell me sometimes "so and so was being naughty. They always get in trouble and they don't listen." But he never really seems to have a problem with them himself. Until lately.

See, I was waiting for this to happen. He loves to talk but he stutters pretty severely and he has trouble with certain letters and sounds. He is also on the short side. I have heard kids make fun of him before, but he hasn't seemed to notice so I haven't said anything to him about it. There is a boy he knows at church that isn't very nice to him, and yet Deacon really likes the kid. There is another boy at the Y that I have also observed being mean to Deacon, and yet Deacon always goes back to the kid and keeps trying to be friends.

I have not been able to understand how he doesn't see this. But he does. This is what I have heard from him in the last 36 hours (usually off hand comments while we are in the car, or working on a project- just like a man, huh?)

"The other kids were saying that I am wearing a skirt. But I am not. My jersey is just kind of long. It made me feel really bad, but then I decided just to go to the other room. They didn't follow me."

"So and so used to be my friend, but now everytime I sit next to him or try to talk to him he moves away."

"Mom, I don't say 'cool' right. It is hard for me. When I say it, it sounds like I am saying 'tool'. You know, like a hammer or something."

So, here is what I have been doing: 1. Encouraging him not to do the same things to others. I have explained to him that saving seats is rude and he should just smile and say hi to whoever sits next to him, 2. He has a couple of good friends that love him. I have noticed that for the most part the kids that we have made efforts to have over and get to know better seem to be more understanding of his speech. So I am going to try to have kids over for him to play with. 3. Teach him about differences and how God gives us all different gifts, talents, looks, skills.

What do I want to tell him?

I want to say, "those kids are mean to you! Stay away from them. They are not worth your time! You deserve better! You are important, you are significant. Don't keep going back and getting hurt!"

But then I think about it more. Isn't he doing the right thing? Treating kids nicely and politely and still trying to be friends even if they are rude? Refusing to let them and their attitudes and actions affect his mood and make him slink away, hurt and offended?

I wish I could be like that. Even when someone treats me badly, always ready to approach them with a smile and another olive branch.

I have a feeling that our struggle with this is just beginning. I want to teach him to be brave and self confident with the ability to stand up for himself; but I also want him to be kind and perceptive of why people are the way they are and not to be so busy standing up for himself that he forgets about others.

Resolutions

I wrote the following on a friend's facebook wall:

I have so many goals they are innumerable. I make new goals for every area, spiritual, physical, emotional, mental, environmental, spatial, transportational, financial, relational, entertainmental, educational, vocational, technological, recreational, parental, marital, literarical...

And yes I made some of those words up. Or rather added inappropriate endings to real words. Whatever.

I don't always write all of them down, but they are in there- floating around my head and trying to organize themselves into a little army, trying to take control of my life.

For example, environmental. NBC is spending lots of money trying to make me green- why shouldn't I let them? I live in suburbia. We all have garage door openers and Central AC. And we all put our recycle bins out faithfully every other week. And they are always full. I grew up recycling- sorting cans and bottles and snipping the little pop can things that kill ducks. Ok, I never did that because my mom was anti pop and I didn't even know what they were. But we sure did recycle!

When we moved to Indiana, I asked someone where the recycling bins at our apartment complex were. I was told that if I wanted to recycle I would have to haul the stuff downtown to the salvation army. You should all be gasping in disbelief right now. I was appalled. The thing was- the SA didn't even have a full program. For the 2 years I was there I winced everytime I had to throw out a can or bottle.

And then we moved back here. I was working with some kindergartners at church and one of them said something about recycling. One of the other children said, "my mom doesn't recycle". You would have thought he had just announced that his mother was in jail for murder. The other 4 kindergartners at the table stared at the kid with wide eyes. This was highly unacceptable.

So I recycle. And I reuse things. And I don't buy paper towels. And I haul out my trash in the bags from the grocery store. But my environmental resolutions for this year are two: 1. Potty train Lincoln so we stop contributing diapers to the landfill. 2. Do less laundry. If people complain about my kids wearing the same clothes for days in a row, I will quote them statistics and prove to them that I am being green. And they should be too.

So there you have it.
I gotta go make my sign for my new laundry room. It is gonna say, "When you have a healthy respect for laundry, it proves you have a healthy respect for the world."

500 mile club housekeeping details

I know I have been flaky about this...the 500 mile club started January 1, and I am just getting details out? Not good.

So far (you are welcome to join late) the club members are:
Julie (6 months)
Noah (6 months)
Matt (6 months)
Becki (8 months)
Billi (8 months or did you want 6?)
Karla (8 months)
Josiah (?)
Sandi (?)
Erica (6 months. Probably 3 would be a better goal for her)

The groups resident geek, M@, made a google document for us so that we can update our miles online and it will automatically update our new average per day and all kinds of cool stuff like that. Thanks Matt! It inspires me to run when I can fill in miles on the color coded chart!

Now, Billi asked about exercise class conversions and submitted a conversion chart. I took some things out and left some things. So, here are the finals. If you do some other form of exercise, use your best judgement how it should be recorded. You are on your honor :)

Swimming 1 mile= 4 miles
Biking 4 miles = 1 mile
Running 1 mile = 1 mile
Walking 1 mile = 1 mile
Stair Climbing 10 minutes=1 mile
Rollerblading 15 minutes=1 mile
Exercise Classes 15 minutes=1 mile
Lifting Weights 20 minutes=1 mile
Playing Sports 15-30 minutes= 1 mile depending on sport

*note: the spread sheet already has the swim/run/bike conversions in it. So if you biked 20 miles, enter 20 and it will calculate it down for you and give you 5 miles against your 500. However, if you rollerblade for 30 minutes, just enter 2 miles into the running section to get it counted.

*note 2: since I have been a flake about this, if you haven't yet started you can start now and just plan to go a few days later like Jan 5- July 5 or something.

*note 3: Billi, I will contact you on facebook to get your email so we can send you the document

The Looming Figure

I just returned from spending a long evening with some friends, most of whom are younger and cooler then I am. But it was fun, even though looming over my head were the thoughts of paint that should be on the cabinets, blog posts that should be written, laundry that is obscuring my bed and toys that are covering almost every square inch of my floor.

Oh, and the new steam cleaner I got for Christmas that I haven't used yet.

We need a pirate ship manager. Noah told me today that I need to take a "more active role" to ensure that all of the pieces of the playmobil pirate ship stay together. Apparently I now need to not only monitor the real apples in my kitchen, I also need to keep track of the Pirate's apples, beets and carrots. I suggested that we take the small pieces and put them in a bag and hide them for now. Why did that even come up? I am not quite sure...

Where was I? Oh yes, Looming figures. I was driving down an unfamilier road in very snowy, slippery conditions. I got home safely but could not get my car up my driveway because, well, my driveway is steep and slippery and snowy. Wait. Did I just say car? I have apparently been hanging around my cool, young friends too much. Hi. My name is Julie. I am 28 and I drive a minivan.

I couldn't get my minivan up the driveway. I was halfway up and stuck. So I backed up and tried again. It was worse. That time the van was stuck with my back van end practically on the street. So I got out and started shoveling. Noah had stuck the Christmas tree (yes, children. Christmas is over. The tree is dead. Did you hear me? It is deeeeaaaddddddddddddd. Did you know that it actually has been dead for several weeks now? We have a green, dead tree in our house and needles all over the floor. Noah interjects: "even though mommy took your tree away, the spirit of Christmas- love, generosity and the sweet baby Jesus-can live all year long in your hearts". Did he just say that? Seriously?)

Anyway, as I shoveled, I kept catching the tree out of the corner of my eye. It was continually scaring me because I felt like a dark, looming figure was lurking on my snow drift.

Ok, I titled my post after that sentence. Wow.

Do you remember the scene in Aladdin where they almost cut off someone's hand? I discovered that I know very little about Disney movies. I haven't seen most Disney movies in probably roughly 15 years. I remember approximately 1 thing out of each movie that I have seen and apparently there are several that I haven't seen. I don't know anything out of those. I have a very low movie IQ.

Our VCR is broken. We have a handful of VHS movies, but obviously they are currently useless to us. We have 18 non kid DVDs in our house right now. 11 of them belong to us, 6 to others, and 1 I have no idea where it came from. Of the 11 that belong to us, 6 of them are nonfiction commentary kind of things. So if you are following along with the math you know that we have 5 "fun" DVDs. Oh, and Season 1 of Dark Angel.

They are:
The Matrix (which I haven't seen)
Princess Bride
Passion of the Christ (which I haven't seen)
Lady Hawke (is that one ours??!!)
Pirates of the Caribbean

I am beginning to get a feel for why my movie IQ may be low. Well, the lack of movies that I have seen and the fact that I fall asleep during most movies.

I have decided that I have chronic fatigue syndrome or something, but today my friends staged an intervention for me and told me that the problem is that I just don't sleep much and that is why I am tired.

So, to answer your question. No, I am not drunk. I am just tired. Good night, and GO VIKINGS! (that one is for you, baby sister)

Christmas Chaos

I wrote the first blurb. A coworker who desires anonymity wrote the press release. Footage to follow.

The Heights (or is it Depths?) of Villainy

Roman informed me tonight that Super-Heroes wear underwear.

Super-Villains do not.

I bet you can't guess which way he was planning to roll :)

-N

Pirates!

Have I told you before how pirate-y our house has become?

We hoist the Main Stay.

We swab the poop deck

We save princesses.

We sing about Rock Monsters.

Because of course we are the pirates who DIDN'T do anything, but then became true heroes.

Deacon is Elliot. Roman is the other Elliot. Lincoln is Pa Grape. I am Mr. Lunt or Eloise the princess and Noah is always the Dread Pirate Robert.

We say arrgh a lot.

What else do we play?

The Backyardigans.

Noah and Roman have been perfecting their super villan laughs.

Then my baby laughed his baby super villan laugh.

The day after he called me "mama".