This Ain't No Dinky Little Holiday

Christmas was different back when we were DINKs (Dual Income No Kids). During our DINKy holidays The Husband and I had plenty of time to prepare for the festivities, plenty of energy to execute the great plans we thought up, and plenty of money to fund them. Now we have kids. Therefore, we have essentially no time, energy, or money to spare. After we clean up, keep our offspring alive, and buy chicken nuggets there are very few resources left to expend on Christmas.

School Shmool: Tales of an Epic Preschool Fail

I have a little story to share with you. Once upon a time, there was a little boy. Because of the vibrant color of his hair, he was called Red. Red liked to run and jump. He liked to race and holler. Red did not like to sit or wait. He did not like to be told what to do. Red especially did not like to be told to sit and wait.

One day Red’s mother took him to a place called preschool. Red recognized the place! He remembered running down the halls chasing after his friend. Red and his friend used to tell each other jokes and laugh and laugh. Sometimes the teacher would separate them, but that was okay. They had so much fun!

Red waited excitedly for his friend to arrive. He was getting impatient. Where was he? Before Red caught sight of his friend, the teacher called him to the classroom. He lined up behind the other children, confident his friend would arrive soon. Finally, Red saw his friend, but he was walking into another classroom!

His friend was being silly, Red thought, pretending like he did not know where he was going. Red tugged on his mother’s sleeve to share the joke. Then Red was confused. His mommy was telling him that his friend was assigned to a different classroom. She must be in on the joke, he thought. But, no, her face looked very serious.

Red was not happy about this. He was not happy at all. Red decided that he felt grumpy about going to school and he told his mother so. He grumpily ignored her as she said encouraging things.  He tried to pull his mommy back out to the car, but she sternly told him to knock it off. Red stopped pulling, but he decided to add being scolded to the list of things he felt grumpy about.  He grumpily washed his hands, grumpily dried them, and then made his way to his spot on the rug, grumpily.

The grumpiness did not last long. Red is generally a happy and confident little boy and most bad moods pass quickly. True to his nature, he was soon making the best of the situation and the majority of the preschool day passed pleasantly enough in a blur of blocks, stories, and songs.

Red was right in the middle of building a sweet Lego creation when his teacher announced it was time for a snack. He felt so excited about snack time that he almost did not mind abandoning his partly-finished Space Trooper Scooter Mobile…almost. Then the unthinkable happened. His teacher told the class that, before the snacks would be passed out, everyone must find their seat on the rug and wait quietly to be called to the snack tables.

What?!

Red was outraged. More sitting? More waiting? Red did not like to sit. He did not like to wait. Red especially did not like to be told to sit and wait.

What did Red do? Did he yell? Did he ignore the teacher and continue to build with Lego?

No.

Red went to his space on the carpet. Red sat quietly. He communicated his displeasure with the situation peacefully, but communicate his displeasure he surely did.

Red shat his pants.

Red said “I shit on your quiet-on-the-carpet-time” in the best way he knew how—by literally shitting on the carpet. Quietly.

Unfortunately, this little story is no fairytale. It is true. And it happened to me. Red is the fruit of my womb. Yay me.

We have since removed Red from preschool. The Husband and I decided that Red could use a little time to mature to a level where he can more appropriately handle the “rigors” of four-year-old preschool curriculum. So Red gets a gap year. The hope is that, when he returns to preschool next year, he will have found a way to express his frustration that does not involve feces. If not, we are going to have to look into schooling options where it is considered “normal” to communicate with poo. Possibly the primate center at the zoo. I wonder if they have a football team?

Doing Everything A Spider Can...To Drive His Mommy Nuts

Has anyone else noticed that phone calls from my mother lead to nothing good? This one started off like any other with talk of what the youngin’s were up to (one at school, the rest tormenting each other) and what the weather was going to be like that day (hot). And then…

“I found a Spider Man costume for Red.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I bought it…I just don’t know if I should give it to him now…or should I save it…?”

I am not sure who she thought she was kidding. We both knew darn well she was giving that kid a Halloween costume in August. And I knew that I was going to have to peel the smelly thing off of his red-headed little body once it was so stiff with crust that he could no longer bend his joints.

Red was psyched about the Spiderman costume. He had it on faster than you can say “Peter Parker.” The squirming began immediately. Next came the whining.  The tears followed shorty thereafter.

The suit was way too big. Children clearly have no concept of a first world problem. I had to talk him down from the ledge before I could even suggest a solution. It took 10 minutes to calm him down enough so that I could roll up his pant legs and only 30 seconds for my neatly rolled rolls to unroll. Cue squirming, whining, and crying.

Luckily, (and by “luckily” I mean to refer you back to my first sentence where I pointed out that my mother is trouble) my mom was able to rubberband his costume to his feet. Somehow THIS made the kid happy. That is, until he started to lose feeling in his feet.

Red and I agreed to a schedule of rubberband “on” time alternated with periods of “off” time in order to allow blood flow back to his feet. Time flies when you are having that much fun and soon it was time to meet Eldest at the bus.

Does anyone know what is the appropriate shoe for a Spiderman costume? Because I do not. What I do know for certain is that none of the pairs of shoes Red put on were it. By the 152^nd pair I had to insist he leave the crocs that change color in the sun on or Eldest was going to end up riding the bus all the way back to school…again.

The most memorable part of waiting for Eldest’s bus was that it was not memorable at all. I was standing next to a three-foot-tall Spiderman—in August—and no one looked at me funny. Not the neighbor waiting for her daughter, not the bus driver, no one. Has the neighborhood come to expect this type of thing from our household? I am not going to think too much about that.

I was just counting down the seconds until bathtime. He had to take the stupid costume off for a bath, right? I figured the worst case scenario was that I would not have to futz with the rubberbands while he was in the tub. But really I was hoping that he would forget all about Spiderman alltogether while he was asleep. That could happen, right? Lie to me. I like it.

When bathtime finally came, Red stripped off his beloved Spiderman costume to reveal that he was bare-butt neked under the thing. And then he announced that he was wearing the Spiderman costume to bed. That is something that I really love about Red. He knows how to make a bad situation worse, and then really make it bad.

“You can wear the costume, but you CANNOT wear the rubberbands.”

“Why not?”

“Because they will cut off your circulation and your feet will fall off.”

“No they won’t.”

“Yes, they will.”

“No they won’t.”

“Yes. They. Will. I read an article on the internet about a little boy just your age who wore his Spiderman costume to bed and left his rubberbands on and his feet fell off.”  

“Well…I read on the internet that he wore his rubberbands and he was fine.”

Touche little redhead, touche.

I guess even Spiderman needs his mom to tell him to "knock it off and go to bed." So I did. Without rubberbands on his feet. Way to go Spidermommy!