copyright Mattson Photography

Bring Out Your Crazies

The other day we were in the grocery store - Robbie had Fionn strapped to his chest and I had Emerson in his cart. Robbie, of course, spotted someone we knew in checkout and wandered over to talk to them while I helped some frazzled woman track down canned chilies.

Apparently while Robbie was talking to our friends, some strange older woman interrupted him to start asking questions about Fionn's coloring. As is often the case, as soon as one person dares to be nosy, it opens to floodgates for everyone else in earshot. Robbie tried to make his way back to me, but this woman and a store worker wandered right along with him. I inwardly groaned as I saw them come around the end of the aisle - the woman was staring at Fionn by now and muttering, "That's going to be interesting watching them grow up." Then she spotted Emerson in my cart and her eyes got even wider. We fielded more questions from her and she did more muttering. "It's definitely going to be interesting. Veeeery interesting."

As she left, the store worker started in. When he asked if we have to buy a lot of sunscreen, I took the opportunity. "We sure do. In fact, that reminds me - we are all out. Thanks!" And off we went to the sunscreen aisle (we were in fact out).

When we left the store, I started complaining about the crazies, especially the woman. "Why the hell does she need to tell us it's going to be interesting?' I should have said, 'In case you haven't noticed, we're already three years and two kids into it. We KNOW it's interesting!"

Robbie snorted. "No, what we should have said is, 'Yeah, it will be interesting. I bet all kinds of crazy people are going to interrupt us to ask stupid questions. What do you think we should do if that happens?'"

Ah, hindsight.

Our Month in Pictures

For those of you who don't wish to torture yourselves by going through the hundreds of new pictures we just posted on Flikr, here is a slightly abridged (albeit long enough to still be embarrassing) photo post/catch up post:

The best time of year in Michigan is Fall. And the best activity in Fall is the Cider Mill. You basically gorge yourself on homemade cider and doughnuts, pick a few apples or pumpkins yourself to feel more wholesome, and try not to spend all your money on the myriad of activities meant to lure in families with young children. This year, we took along our friend's baby girl, Jane, so they could catch up on housework. I have to admit, it was fun pretending we had twins plus a toddler - although I was disappointed at the lack of reaction among the general public. Apparently, having two kids with white hair garners a lot more attention than having twins and a toddler two years apart. Hmm.


I have to say, seeing Robbie with Jane made my ovaries ache. Sigh.


Emerson quickly took to the idea of thumping pumpkins to test how good they are. So we had to pat ALL of them.


The strangest sight was seeing them "stock" the pumpkin patch. Yes - we drove on a wagon out to this field that used to be a pumpkin patch, but had long ago been picked over. As we are staring at the "planted" pumpkins, a truck pulls up and workers start unloading more pumpkins. So people crowd around to get one, seemingly unconcerned with the absurdity of this ruse. Technically our pumpkin was no different, but just on principle I refused to get one directly off the truck.


Next stop was the farm petting zoo, full of animals that had overdosed on prozac and looked long gone to the world. The woman at the front refused to charge us for the two babies since she assumed only the toddler would enjoy it.


She had it backwards.


Emerson fails to grasp the concept of sticking your head through the wooden display for a picture.


He also fails to understand why we are making him stand on a large haystack.



A few weeks ago, Emerson was in a family wedding in his first-ever ring bearer gig. I was the officiant, but let me tell you - being the mom of the ring bearer was much more stressful. The first step was getting fitted for his tux - and discovering the magic of mirrors.



Incidentally, they took every single measurement possible, then turned and asked me, "What size does he wear?" When I answered 3T, they turned and pulled out a 3T tux, saying, "Here you go. We don't rent this one, so you need to buy it for $70." My initial reaction was, "Why the hell did you make him sit through all the measurements if it's based on standard sizing?" My second thought was, "Screw you Men's Wearhouse, I'm buying this tux second hand." The next day I found the exact same one at a resell shop complete with vest and tie for $20. SO there.

My handsome men before the wedding rehearsal. These rare moments when I can force them into complementary sweater vests almost make it ok that I don't have a daughter. Almost.



Emerson did...poorly...at the wedding rehearsal the night before, so we came prepared with gummy bears to bribe him down the aisle. He ate all 75+ of them in the hour before the wedding started. Then we had to hide the empty bucket that he refused to relinquish under the ring pillow.


The plan was for Emerson to hold the flower girl's hand and be dragged down the aisle. Unfortunately, we forgot to take into account her need to use both hands to throw flower petals as she walked. So Robbie sent him down on his own. He walked a few steps, looked around in confusion at everyone staring at him, Robbie gently pushed him down the aisle a few more feet, and the cycle repeated. Needless to say, it took a while to get him all the way down. Ah, memories.



Next to his dapper brother, Fionn looks a little like the crazy, drunk uncle who is always embarrassing himself at family parties.


During dinner, cousin Ricky leans over to taunt Emerson, "Hey, can you make this face?"

I nearly reply, "Don't challenge Emerson to a crazy eye contest because you will go DOWN" But then I think better of it.

(Yes, I'm aware that I'm a horrible person.)



Fionn literally danced his socks off.


Watching the mother-son dance, I had one of those stereotypical moments of tearing up with the realization that someday I'll be taking the dance floor with my own sons. Sigh.


The ever-cool man, Emerson starts scouting for the best after-parties.


At the end of the month, we had to make a mini trip to Chicago so I could complete my interview with the Regional Subcommittee on Candidacy. This is a major hurdle where they decide if you have enough of what it takes to be a minister and recommend that you either continue on or give up now. But they state it a lot better than that. I did ok and passed the interview, but a combination of having a sick stomach (no I'm not pregnant, so don't email me all in a tizzy) and having some recent doubts about my ministry path made this a challenging trip. With all this weighing heavy on my mind (and stomach) the morning of the interview, we decide the best medicine would be to eat greasy diner food in Hyde Park.


Hyde Park from a 3-year-old's perspective.


After lunch, we spent the afternoon exploring the Museum of Science and Industry. I prayed that my sour stomach would clear up before my 5pm interview. It did not.




Emerson, being Emerson, loved the endless ramps and the water ball pit.


Fionn, being Fionn, enjoyed just about anything that involved getting out of the sling.



And I finally got to live out my dreams of going to space.


Emerson's first trick-or-treating experience was the downtown Halloween parade the day before. By the time we walked down there, he was passed out - but I was determined to get some trick-or-treating in before the parade ended in an hour. So I shook my kid awake, bribed him with the promise of candy and dragged all three of us through the rain to get it done. My violent illness and squirming kids be damned - we were going to have FUN! And despite my insane drive to force my children into enjoying themselves, they actually did have fun. The moment people started putting candy into his bucket, Emerson was wide awake and babbling an excited stream of chatter that included the word "wow" and "candy" several times. It was priceless.


Fionn's First Birthday/Halloween Party. The number of babies in attendance and resulting chaos was a sight to be seen.


The moment he saw the cupcake, he burst into tears because we weren't giving it to him fast enough. Needless to say, he did not share his brother's aversion to digging in and getting messy.



Notice the single tear for dramatic effect.


Six teeth and a tiny stomach notwithstanding, Fionn devours every last crumb.


Despite an entire day of partying, we still have a night of trick-or-treating ahead of us. Emerson is thrilled that the generosity continues, although I will spend the next few days trying to convince him that we can't go outside every night and collect candy from our neighbors.


After nearly two hours of trick-or-treating, Emerson falls into a deep coma.

Picture Schedules

I mentioned several posts ago that I was going to post the new picture schedule I created for Emerson - so here I am finally getting to it! These are often used to help kids who have trouble making transitions between activities, or for kids like Emerson who don't necessarily have trouble with transitions, but who dislike routines and fight it every step of the way. For instance, trying to apply sunscreen every morning is a lot like trying to wrestle a squealing, greased pig. (Or something like that - I'm not up on my farm similes.) These pictures make it more of a game to get through it...and letting him watch cartoons during the process doesn't hurt either. But more on that later.

I created this format using a combination of things I've seen, but if you do a Google image search for picture schedules, you'll get many more ideas. The pictures I used can be printed for free from a huge picture database on: http://www.dotolearn.com/picturecards/howtouse/schedule.htm


Here is his morning schedule (the one we use the most often since the night often just...happens...lately).




When it's time for a new activity, we move it to the front (I purchased these awesome velcro dots to make this work) and I repeat what the picture stands for. I.E. "Now it's time for sunscreen!" When the activity is finished, he gets to remove the picture and put it in the pocket folder (see last image).




Here is our night schedule:






This folder hasn't been used as much since I often forget to pull it out, but it's full of his favorite activities. I put two dots on the front so he can either pick between two favorite activities as a reward for something done well, or we can use it for the "First, then" method. This is when you take a hated activity (say...sunscreen) and put it on the first dot. Then the preferred activity (say bubbles or bike riding) goes on the second dot. The idea is to explain, "First we will do sunscreen, then bubbles." Sometimes this helps. Sometimes it doesn't.



Putting the picture in the folder seems like a lame reward, but kids get excited about strange things. The one thing I will say is that the schedules will lose their novelty for both parents and kids quickly. I find myself using them for a few days, then not for a few, then back to using them. It depends on how much your child craves strict routine (we still generally follow the routine, we just don't always use the pictures to help us, but some kids get very upset if things are not just so every day). I'm also inherently lazy.

Back Online

After a trip, a mystery illness, a wedding, a birthday party, some major life decisions and a computer virus that completely shut me down, I'm FINALLY back to the keyboard. Hopefully today I will get a chance to finish one of the many half-written posts in my draft box, but in the meantime, I uploaded all our new pictures from the past couple months in Flikr if you're so inclined.

Deep Breaths

Emerson at Rosh Hashanah

This month has been building momentum, like a frothing wave curling up behind me. The giant wall of water paused long enough for me to realize that I was going to drown. And then it came crashing down full force.

Back in my brief newspaper days, I earned the title of my generation's Andy Rooney. I didn't dress in bad brown suits or begin my columns with, "Have you ever wondered what the deal is with (fill in the blank)?" but I might as well have. I was and still am a champion complainer. A Debbie Downer. A glass half-empty kind of gal. I even preached once on the positive power of negative thinking - with mixed results.

All this is to say, I am going to do my best not to detail all my complaints. It's been a ....full few weeks. I've been dealing with births, death, weddings and a sermon. I've watched with excitement as Emerson achieved new milestones like giving up the bottle for good and making progress in speech therapy. I've also resisted the urge to smash his precious noggin as we battle over potty training and his epic temper tantrums. I've been trying to figure out where the hell I am as a mother and where the hell I'm going as a minister.

The other day, I had a dream that I was given a package of cigarettes and for some reason I had to smoke them all in a short period of time. I HATE anything even remotely connected with smoking. I will readily admit I'm the type that exaggerates my coughs and sends death lasers out of my eyes every time I pass a smoker. I have never tried smoking- the closest I came was after a night of sipping wine when I decided to play the empowered female and smoke a cigar with a group of men. Except I couldn't even get the nerve to pull the smoke into my mouth much less inhale. (insert Clinton joke here)

Despite all this, I have to admit that the act of sucking in and then exhaling deep billows of smoke was immensely satisfying. I luxuriated in the motions of it and felt completely relaxed despite my imaginary deadline to finish them all quickly. After I woke up from this dream, I spent the rest of the morning trying to figure out why this came to mind. Somewhere in the middle of a walk through the neighborhood in a failed attempt to get the boys to nap, I realized it was the deep breathing that I found so relaxing. I tried it, sucking in the brisk Fall air and then exhaling slowly. Obviously it only created a ghostly steam instead of the dark plumes of smoke in my dream, but it was still satisfying.

In all my attempts to stay afloat, the easiest solution was right there - just keep breathing. Deeply. It's sad that as a minister in training I so often forget the most universal of relaxation techniques, but at least my subconscious and Philip Morris teamed up to remind me.