knowing

I don't want to blog about this but if I don't, I can't move forward. I can't think of anything else. It's been consuming my thoughts and squeezing my heart until it aches.

A mother is suppose to know.

There is an over-diagnosed, over-medicated problem that I never wanted to be a part of, but here I am contemplating if Henry has ADD. I've heard what his preschool teacher said last year 'he dazes off like he isn't listening... you have to repeat instructions to him several times'. I get it, I do, but he's only 6 years old. He's a boy. Boys are just like that.

Right?

I don't want to be another one of those mothers who thinks labeling the problem fixes it.

And now we are getting emails, the same story. "He talks too much... he doesn't listen... please work with him at home".

We are. We have never *not*.

Maybe we as a society are expecting too much from school aged children, cramming into their little brains all that they can before SAT and 'school' progress reports, hoping that our children can stop acting like children during the hours of 9am-3:30pm and start remembering that school is their job.

Here I am confident that we made the right choice for Henry going into an immersion school, because it's more physical, there is more movement, he gets to get out of his chair, but then I get crushed by another voice: 'maybe it's the school's problem, not Henry's'.

Maybe they are right.

A mother doesn't always know.

WW - further proof

My kid is a weirdo. Seriously, what 2 year old like V-8?

it gets better

I walked into Wyatt's bedroom this morning, wondering why he was still asleep at 8:30am. I peered over his bed to see him wrapped up in this yellow and black Iowa Hawkeye blanket naked (cue the bad flashback to college days). He held between his arms, pajamas; snuggling up to them like it was his favorite blankie. But it gets better...

Underneath his naked body was his diaper, ripped off as he commonly likes to do these days. Not just any diaper, one filled with poop. Besides him, in his bed, is a dirty wipe, that I can only assumed he grabbed from his changing table and decided to 'clean himself up with' after such a messed was created. (Yes, my child is one for personal hygiene). But it gets better...

He kept telling me that he needs "new pajamas". I'm insistent, "No, it's time to get up, you need to get dressed". He continued on about 'new pajamas' as I continued on pulling off all the sheets, the blankets, surveying the bed for poop. But it gets better...

I throw the bundle into the laundry and return to his room to pick out some clothing for the day. Wyatt is still standing behind me yapping on and on about 'new pajamas'. I rolled my eyes and opened his underwear/pajama drawer. On top of all of his previously clean pajamas and underwear is his pajamas from last night, the ones that he took off after he pooped in his diaper. See, he successfully managed to cover his pajamas in poop too, take them off, put them back into his drawer and pull out the clean pajamas that he was snuggling with this morning when I found him.

I turned around to look at Wu, he looked at me with his big, blue saucer eyes and casually said "see, new pajamas!"

The two's...

it does get better, right?

birthday wishes

Each classmate in Henry's class made him a picture for his birthday. The teacher stapled all the drawings together into this great little keepsake book. I was flipping through it again recently, admiring the details. It's filled with cute pictures drawn by the hands of 5 and 6 year olds, how can anything get much more precious than that?

It includes pictures like this


and this


and this...


wait, did you notice something in the upper right hand corner?


Oh, that's right - the devil's number, 666.

I'll be sure to keep this as evidence since it is obviously just too adorable; 'Happy Birthday, Henry from Your Friend, future school-bomb-note kid'.

sometimes I suck

Sometimes I suck at being a mom. For all of you that didn't comment on my birthday parties are out of control post, this is one post where you can come in and leave a comment about how 'I told you so!'.

Henry's only invited 9 of his friends to his birthday party, which seems pretty small when I have a distinct memory of inviting every child in my Kindergarten class and guess where I had it at: McDonald's. That's right, my love of McDonald's runs deep and long.

But anyway, Henry invited 9 kids. They sat down at the table decorated with Clone Wars paper plates. I added pretzels and said 'we were going to sing and have cake next'. One little boy looks up and say 'is this all we are eating?'

Love all that kid honesty.

Upon leaving, another friend of Henry's asked Henry for his 'goodie bag'. Henry looked at him blankly and turned to my husband. My husband looked at his friend and said "Sorry to tell you, Bud, we don't have goodie bags, but thank you for coming".

Under his breath he said "tell your Mom to start reading Henry's Mom's blog" (not really).

Got that, the math on that is *2 out of 9* complained about something. 22%, that's a pretty high*sucky mom* percentage.

When we returned home from Henry's party, my husband announced next year he's putting himself in charge of the goodie bags.

So this year, I sucked as a mom, but next year I guess I'll be taking the credit I'll be handing our goodie bags in an attempt to lower my sucky mom percentage (thanks to my husband).

Actually, this might have worked out perfectly.

I'm WW

Even though we can afford more than one bowl of cereal, Wyatt prefers to share his with his Dad.

Every day.

Feed My Starving Children last night, reminded me how thankful I should be to be able to have multiple bowls every day. Together, we packaged enough for 38 children of Haiti to eat for one year.

One bowl, once a day.

Life changing, for us both.

a letter to parents

Dearest Parents of Henry's Kindergarten Classmates,

I'm sorry if I offended any one by not inviting the entire class to Henry's 6th birthday party on Saturday. (In case you haven't already figured it out, I'm not a participation trophy for everyone type of a mom either.) I cannot afford to host a $300 birthday party at Pump It Up, in terms of my wallet or my sanity. If my son did happen to say to your child, 'did you get my card (invitation)?' forgive him, he's only 5 (yes, nearly 6) and forgets who he actually picked to come; if you haven't gotten one already, your son/daughter will not be getting an invitation in the mail. Maybe this can be a lesson in conflict resolution?

If you did get an invitation, an email RSVP would be appreciated. I'm pretty certain most people don't have to sit and wait for the whine of dial-up, so a 1 minute task - if that, is all I'm asking.

I got the 'basic' birthday package, in case you were wondering. Your child will not be fed pizza, bread sticks, soda... they will be getting cake (not ordered from a store), pretzels and juice boxes. I was hoping that the 3-5pm time frame would have indicated that I will not be feeding your child a meal, but perhaps I assumed incorrectly.

One more thing, your child will not be getting a goodie bag for attending Henry's birthday party. It's not that Henry doesn't want to give your child presents, last year he attempted to hand out one (newly opened) present to each of his guests (he's amazingly sweet like that), but it's that I'm sympathizing with you, the parents - do you really want more crap in your house?

Looking forward to seeing you all not getting glared down at the concert in February, otherwise, we'll see you on Saturday for Henry's birthday bash.

Sincerely,
Anti-Supermom