Happy New Year from Max Clara and Zoe!

2006











2007
Heres hoping 2008 is filled with good clean fun!

A moment in Bedlam

Scene: Saturday morning... Clara crawling toward the family room, Max in toe, hitting her with a Christmas wrapping paper tube. Clara isn't screaming, but the repetitive thrashing motion of the wrapping paper tube pulls me from my own eternal repetitive action, of moving clothes from the washer to the dryer...

Me: "Max, stop hitting Clara!"
Max: "I'm not, I'm whipping her!"
Me: "Oh"

I'm always thrown off by the adjective quick switch. Max is aware of this, is good with words and frequently uses this technique. He knows somehow (perhaps by my dumfounded silence) that it's confusing for me when he uses synonyms. So it's true that he's not hitting her, it is a more accurate statement, based on the implement he's using that it is more of a whipping action and now somehow I'm lost in a world of comprehending that he can use synonyms accurately in a sentence and by the time I arise from the fog, the moment has passed and I've just noticed that Clara is now snapping the mouse trap open and shut and the potential of her snapping off her finger is now ranking above disciplining aforementioned buttocks whooping.

Namaste.

Christmas!

See how max has his hand on the Lego Mars Mission box, as if he were feeling the pulse of his own beating heart? Thump thump. Thump thump. It's because he is. For the life and breath of Max dwells within the heart of Lego Land. Where underwater substations and Alien space terminals abound.


See the warm glow surrounding Zoe and Clara? It's all about My Little Pony. Pinkie Pie. The most wonderful pony of them all.

Kitty on Board

CLICK HERE or cut and paste
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1773537376

This photo perfectly exhibits what a true delight it can be to be in the company of Max. Give him a wig and a stage and you get solid gold.

Glasses courtesy of David Swanson archives. Stylin in the early 90's? not so much...

Dreamboat

Tracking and the Unraveling Of My Psyche

If anything were going to sever the tenuous hold I have on my mental well-being, it's not the sibling rivalry nor the constant requests for juice. It's the tracking. Im talking emotional tracking. I'm talking physical tracking. Children following me around, asking me over and over again for things that are out of stock or my favorite, unavailable food items containing colors like red die #3, which has been shown to cause thyroid tumors in rats & aren't I a bad mother for denying them this opportunity! Of course I can't really explain this to them or Max will start pointing at all red snacks in the cafeteria exclaiming "Alert! That item has been found to cause tumors in rodents" and then I'll have unhappy mothers tracking me too.

I can take maybe 5 minutes of this and then I start to have the distinct sensation that my brain is seeping out of my fingernails. I try and walk away from the situation and then they follow me. The little people. They follow me. Sometimes I shut the door to my bedroom, but we don't have locks, so they just open it. I lose all track of time. At some point they stop and I slowly scratch and claw my way back up into my emotional body and then we move on and I start folding laundry or take on some other mundane task that requires little of me. While I recover.

It's the holidays... my good friend sarcasm has taken up residence in my frontal lobe to help me cope with the insanity and I'm having a bad day...
I'm sure tomorrow will be lovely...

Namaste.

Event Calendar, Round 2 - Max

Day 2
I'm thrilled to report that day 2 has been a success. It looks like my threats from yesterday (that I would give the Event Calendar away) have sunk in.
Today was a success!
Gift opened by Max. Clara and Zoe in a state of acceptance and semi acceptance respectively.

The Annual Event Calendar

Every year, our magically enthusiastic and celebratory friends drop an Advent Calendar off on our doorstep so that the children can count down the days to Christmas with the daily ritual of opening a present.
With an uncharacteristic show of civility, Max Clara and Zoe lined up to pick strings and the one with the longest string was to kick the tradition off by opening the first present. The rules of engagement were discussed and happily received. "YES WE KNOW MOMMY". I explained that each child would take turns opening a gift, one per day and that there would be no trading. And if there were going to be tears by onlookers, they had to be silent tears with no vocal accompaniment. Or if they were feeling exceedingly sad, they could simply remove themselves from the situation and maintain a comfortable distance from me, of oh...say.... 5,000 nautical miles.

So it was with great optimism that I kicked off the Advent Calendar tradition and already civility has been cast aside and replaced by torment. As I sit here and write on the first day (Clara's Day), Zoe has spilled her body all over the floor in a puddle of tears, Max is wailing & repeating over and over again that the girls ALWAYS GET TO GO FIRST & Clara is prancing around waving her present like a flag of triumph. I guess it's unrealistic to think that they can manage much beyond play, pouring their own juice and using the potty. I need to STOP being so optimistic now that they are 3, 4 and 6 and START realizing that they are 3, 4 and 6.

Moving forward, I will now refer to the Advent Calendar as the EVENT Calendar and during that time, I will refer to my sweet darlings as Thing 3, Thing 4 and Thing 6.

I welcome it. Another opportunity for the children to transcend & break the code of willful DNA that Dave and I passed along to them.