Time for school yet?

It's funny. As I sat down to write this, I came across a forgotten blog I wrote last year right around this time. In it, I complain about the very same things that are bugging me today. It must be a theme with me, this summer exhaustion. It's not so much that I'm itching to get the kids out of my jurisdiction, it's just that they are on one another's nerves in a big way right now. I think it all comes down to that state dreaded by kids and parents alike: b-o-r-e-d-o-m.

My kids seem to wake up bored, and in this house, my boys' ennui (yes, I used the thesaurus to come up with that word!) leads to bickering. I'm embarrassed to detail the boys' fights here, because really, the worst of it is between Ben and Paul, and I feel that at 8 and 5, they should be getting beyond this. Usually it's a chorus of something like this: "Mom! Paul spit at me!" "Well, MOM, that's because Ben pinched me!" This happens every day. This morning, during another battle, I asked Mark if he now understood why I hang on to my sanity only by a thread. Yes indeed he did.

One of my aunts who has two sons said that when her boys were growing up, she simply refused to be dragged into their arguments. The fighting never stopped anyway, she reasoned, and the boys weren't happy with her resolutions. I can see a lot of wisdom in that, and I've tried and failed to adopt that strategy for myself. I don't know if it's my temperament or the fact that unlike my aunt and uncle, who lived on a farm and had lots of land and could put some distance between themselves and the malcontents, I must stay in close proximity to the boys. Whatever the case, I seem to have difficulty extricating myself from their fights. As a result, most days my patience is worn thin by roughly 8:30 a.m.

I remember very well what summer boredom felt like when I was a kid, and my brothers and I got ourselves into the very same situations that drive me nuts now (perhaps this is my comeuppance?). Though I can keenly recall the feeling, I can't understand it anymore. It's just another one of those disconnects between kids and adults. Like every other parent, all I can think now is, what I wouldn't give to have that much free time on my hands.

My cousin who has older kids once told me how she loves the summer, the fact that it's carefree and unscheduled. I'm simply not there yet. Somehow, for my kids carefree and unscheduled ends up being a recipe for disaster. I'll take heart in what she said, though, and hope that someday summer will like that for me. Until then, I might casually note that there are 38 more days until school starts.

I'll have to settle for third best

Look at these two in the picture. That's me with Paul one of the many days I worked in his cooperative preschool last year - that's right, I volunteered many hours at his school and in fact chose this very school because I knew it would help him through his separation anxiety. I'll pause so you can admire my selflessness.

You would think my middle son would hold me in pretty high regard, right? Not according to him. Apparently, in his eyes, I'm only third best. This all came to light the other day at the playground. Paul and Gus and I were playing at Clovis Park while Ben was doing his weekly park & rec game time class. I noticed Paul watching Ben, and I said, "Ben's your favorite person in the world, huh?"

Paul said, "Yeah, and dad's my second favorite, you're my third favorite, and Gus is my fourth favorite."

What!?!? My first reaction was slightly amused surprise. I tried not to take it too seriously. These were, after all, the musings of a 5-year-old, but next, I felt the tiniest bit wounded. Third favorite? Hello, I'm Mom. That should be good for an automatic second favorite, if you ask me. I pressed him: "What do you mean"?

"Well," he said, "Dad does more sports and plays with us more, but I like you better for snuggling."

I guess if those are his criteria for parental ranking, he's got a point. I am what I am, and sporty is not it. I do wish that I could take more time to just have fun with the boys, but that seems pretty hard to do at this point. When Mark's at work, and it's just me and the boys, I tend to spend a disproportionate amount of time keeping Paul's maniacal 2-year-old brother in check. It doesn't leave me a lot of time for playing baseball or tossing around a football.

I suppose I will have to just accept my role as long-suffering, under-appreciated matron of the house. "Mother - that was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries," wrote T. DeWitt Talmage (I have no idea who that is, but I like it). That's me: repository of hurt and worries, snuggler, cooker of nutritious meals, doer of laundry, settler of arguments. If that's only good enough for third best, so be it. Sigh. I think I just may work on my sportiness, though. You know I'm vying to take over second place.

Gotta stay off those comments sections

Though they never fail to make me feel sad and hopeless, I'm irresistibly drawn to comments sections. You know what I'm talking about - those areas after news stories et al on the web where readers can leave their feedback. They often are filled with personal attacks on other commenters and outrageous arguments. I peruse with sorrow that people are so divided and can't seem to find a way to even hear what others have to say.

Last week, I wandered onto a doozy of one. I have been somewhat following this NPR series about mothers about to give birth. This one featured a blog a woman had written detailing the way she and her husband had decided they would not choose circumcision for their soon-to-be-born son. The blog itself was fine: the woman offered a reasoned, rational explanation of how she and her husband had arrived at their decision. What followed in the comments section, however, was what I can only describe as (excuse my language) a sh*tstorm of controversy. In the end, nearly 2,000 people sounded off.

I had heard a little about the issue of circumcision, but I had no idea people felt so passionately about it. I have to admit at first I was a little puzzled. After all, circumcision is optional. Seemingly, and I say this without judgment, opponents are not satisfied with that. From what I gather, they think the procedure should be outlawed. The anti-circumcision crowd threw around phrases like barbaric, mutilation, child abuse, human rights violation. And that's where they lost me. You may not agree with circumcision, but how can you call it child abuse when there's plenty of the real thing going on?

Here's a sampling of some of the more outrageous statements:

• Many, many people compared the issue of male circumcision to female genital mutilation. This is preposterous and insulting to women who have suffered that atrocity.

• One woman stated that people who circumcise are just like people who don't breastfeed: too lazy to take care of their children. (Aside: as someone who breastfed and thinks breastfeeding is important, I hope that this woman doesn't argue for the cause of breastfeeding. Ever.)

• Another poster stated that her son was born perfect, and she wasn't going to change that. Implicit message: those of us who choose circumcision believe otherwise about our sons.

• Then there was the guy who said people who circumcise should be imprisoned. I can only hope he was being ironic, but somehow I doubt it.

Don't get me wrong, people on the pro-circ side made their share of rude, flippant comments as well. This is my whole problem. Every website I've ever seen warns readers to keep it civil and refrain from making personal attacks, but please. People in these situations take advantage of their anonymity to write things they would, I hope, never have the nerve to say to someone face-to-face.

When people descend to the level of attacking others and making hyperbolic statements, they really are hurting their own cause. If I were a first-time parent considering the issue of circumcision, and someone used phrases like barbaric and child abuse, I would label that person as a fanatic and stop listening. If, however, that same person simply would state his or her beliefs calmly, I would listen.

Reading people's comments bothered me. A lot. It's not easy to hear a choice that I've made characterized using those strong, ugly words. For the record, as you probably can guess, and I hope this isn't a TMI moment, we chose circumcision for our boys. When we thought about it, we decided that we wanted the boys to enjoy the health and hygiene benefits (I know opponents would argue that this is a non-issue with a little bit of care and teaching), and we wanted them not to suffer teasing when they got older in those locker room situations. If I had it to do over again, I would do more research, and I'm not sure how we would decide. As it is, we made the decision that made sense at the time, and I'm comfortable with that.

Later last week, I was listening to a program on WPR about the need for people to listen to one another and try to understand opposing views. The guest stated that if we keep holding tightly to our own beliefs and shutting everything else out, nothing will ever change for us. It struck me as a virtuous, if challenging, goal. Though I hold my beliefs strongly, I feel that I'm willing to listen to opposing views. The understanding part can be harder, but I certainly can aspire to that. I'm stilling trying to apply this bit of wisdom to the comments section brawl I witnessed. This one could take some time ...

A day at the beach

If you've read my blog, you know that I've established the fact that my pre-kids, idyllic vision of parenting has not panned out for me. Resignedly, I operate with much-reduced expectations and am much more content. That's why when I saw that Friday would be a hot day, I didn't just come up with a plan willy-nilly and expect it to turn out great. Get the boys into their suits, pack them into the car, head to the pool - that simply would not work. No, I had to plan for all contingencies.

You see, pools, with all their slippery surfaces are not a good choice for my little wild man. At a beach, it would be virtually impossible for Gus to run away from me and crack his head open, so the beach it was. After I tackled gathered the boys for the torture that is sunscreen application, I began to assemble what we would need. Our needs included kick boards for Ben and Paul that I soon would learn they would not be allowed to use at the beach and toys I knew Gus would refuse to play with as soon as he saw some other child's better toys. Notice that I still brought the toys, the better to facilitate my futilely waving the toys in front of Gus while frantically exclaiming, "Don't you want to play with your truck, Gus?" Anyhoo, I picked up my mom, because, please, like I'd attempt this on my own, and we were off to Sunset Beach in Kimberly.

Armed with my realistic expectations, nothing much about the trip surprised me. Gus, fearlessly wading into the water up to his neck? Saw that coming. Gus glomming on to someone else's far-superior Cookie Monster and Big Bird scoopers? Check. At one point, Gus set his sights on two boys' Tonka trucks. That was fine when they weren't around, but when they saw him playing with their stuff, they were not happy. "He can't play with our trucks. Do you know why? Because he's not 5!" they said indignantly. Soon, they were bored of playing with their trucks and went off to the concession stand, but not before threatening me, "Guard our trucks - don't let him touch them!" I took the 5-year-olds seriously. After all, here was my opportunity to wave futilely and exclaim frantically.

I kid, but all in all the trip was pretty successful. Ben and Paul have reached that glorious stage in which they can be fairly independent, and they played really well together and had a marvelous time. And aside from trying to filch other kids' goods, Gus did pretty well, too. I spent the bulk of my time following him as we went down the slide roughly 150 times. It went so well, in fact, that I might even do it again. Just don't expect to catch me at the pool.

To Mark on his 34th birthday

This being the eve of my dear husband's birthday, I thought I'd take this opportunity to sing his praises a little bit. Mark and I celebrated 13 years together in May. The guy I'd dated before Mark was, let's just say, not a good choice for me. I was stumbling through college at UW-Fox Valley not working particularly hard and kind of aimless. My whole life shifted when Mark came into it. He was the kindest, smartest guy I'd ever met, and he made me want to be a better person.

The fall after we started dating, I transferred to UW-Oshkosh. I became much more focused. I did well in school for the first time in a long time. Mark was attending UW-Madison, so we had a long-distance relationship for two years. It was hard to be apart, but still, our relationship thrived. A little more than a year after our first date, Mark proposed. We were young - just 21 at the time (one uncle called me the child bride when we married at 23), but I'd say we've done pretty well for ourselves.

When Mark showed up at my bridal shower with dozens of roses, my sister-in-law, Sara, who's married to Mark's brother, Steve, laughed knowingly and said, "Don't expect that to last." She was right, because I'm sure she knew that grand gestures are a small part, at best, of good, long relationships. Don't get me wrong, Mark still surprises me from time to time, but that's not really the point. Long after the romance and excitement of new love has faded, after we've been married several years and the appearance of kids has whittled our one-on-one time to nearly nothing, I know: Mark is the kind of guy you want by your side for the long road ahead. There is no one with whom I'd rather experience the good times and bad.

I recently read a piece Tom Hanks had written about questions he's always asked on the press circuit. One is, "What's your secret to a happy marriage"? His reply? "I was smart enough to marry Rita Wilson." That would be my answer, too. I was smart enough to marry Mark Thiel.

I'll close this post with some lines from a favorite Avett Brothers song, All My Mistakes. Mark first quoted these to me in our 10-year anniversary card, and I think they're perfect.

I made decisions some right and some wrong
And I let some love go I wish wasn't gone
These things and more I wish I had not done

But I can't go back
And I don't want to
'Cause all my mistakes
They brought me to you

A holy terror

Leave it to my youngest child to lay waste to yet another situation I thought I had all figured out. As soon as my firstborn was past that sleep-all-the-way-through-church phase, I decided that though it would be tough, we should try to keep him in church rather than putting him in the nursery or sitting in the "cry room." Sure, each week, Mark or I would have to take him to the lounge to run around a bit, but it always seemed logical to me that a child couldn't learn to behave in church unless he was, you know, in church. Besides, the little chapel reserved for parents at our church, aka the cry room, oddly seems to attract plenty of random adults without children, so I would still feel like my child was bothering someone.

Our philosophy served us fine through our first two kids. We did the whole pack a snack, bring some books thing, and most of the time church went fairly smoothly for us, as much as can be expected with two little boys in tow, anyway.

Then along came Gus. To put it simply, Gus and church do not mix. He is just too much of a frenetic ball of energy to be contained by the confines of church. By the time the first two boys were almost 3, as Gus is now, of course they still would be wiggly and bored (let's face it they're still that way now), but at least they could sit somewhat calmly in one of our laps and look through a book. Not so with Gus. By the time he was about 2, we had quickly abandoned our no-nursery policy - and just as quickly learned that the nursery often doesn't have volunteers, anyway.

Most weeks, we have no choice but to slog through our first chosen method of bringing kids to church (could this be some kind of punishment for my self-righteous proclamations about the right way to do things?). On a good day, Gus makes it through 20 minutes of Mass, and then he'll loudly announce that he'd like to take a walk. Mark and I usually trade off weeks of Gus duty. Yesterday was my turn.

I had forgotten to bring a drink for Gus, so less than five minutes into church, I took him out with the idea of taking him to the water fountain. Instead he ran right to the nursery. Fine, I thought, we'll just stay here and he can play a while. What's the difference, really, anyway? He stayed there a bit, and then got bored of it and decided he'd like to head back to church. He barreled down the hallway, much faster than I could walk, and really it didn't seem appropriate for me to be running through church. He was about to slam right into a door and cause a big commotion when I finally caught up to him. I snatched him up and took him to the lounge, where, in my best try-to-control-my-rage voice, I fruitlessly tried to explain to him I would be holding him for the rest of church. That's not how Gus rolls. He always wins these battles of will. I ended up closely tailing him for the rest of the miserable time. When it was time for Communion, I carried him in, and though the whole thing takes but a minute or two, he whined loudly and tried to wriggle out of my grasp. I encountered Mark, and said, "keys" through gritted teeth. We proceeded directly to the car to wait out the end of church.

We're at an impasse. Taking Gus to church truly makes us unhappy. The unlucky provider of Gus care inevitably winds up grumpy for the next couple hours. It's the opposite of the peaceful experience I want from church. Mark and I have discussed several possibilities, from going to church separately to avoid taking Gus, to simply having one of us stay home with him each week. But while churchgoing with Gus drains me so, I'm stubborn. Having us all go together there is important to me. I still think Gus needs to go and try to learn how to behave in church. So I guess the answer is, there is no answer. We'll just have to keep doing what we're doing and hope that this is one battle of the wills we can win - eventually.

I'm back! And, yeah, still the same ...

So it's been a few months. My blog had been on life support and, you probably assumed, died a slow death. I'm here to tell you, reader, that I'm redoubling my efforts to keep my blog up to date. Please accept my apologies for having left you breathless with anticipation.

I'll pick up right at the present, the first glorious day of the first full, beautiful week of summer vacation. I will give you a rundown of the boys' schedules, and you will never believe that I had intended to keep them "relatively free" this summer. Paul is taking a "get ready for kindergarten" summer school class, mostly because I feel strongly that he's not at all (emotionally) ready for kindergarten. I hadn't planned on signing up Ben for any summer school classes ... but then his teacher recommended this great robotics class. I signed up Paul for T-ball, because, hey, he might like it. And I enrolled Ben in kickball and "It's Game Time!" because, man, that sounds fun. Summer school runs Monday through Thursday mornings for the next four weeks. T-ball games are Monday and Wednesday mornings, after summer school, natch. Kickball is Wednesday afternoons, and Ben will partake of game time Friday afternoons. Rounding out our schedule, all three boys take swimming lessons on Saturday mornings.

Honestly, I have the best intentions. I know for a fact that I do not enjoy spending my days driving the boys from one place to the next, and over-scheduling is no good for them either. All I can surmise about how I get myself into these situations is that I develop some sort of amnesia about how much I am indeed undertaking. Summer school? Great! Park and rec activities? Those are such good opportunities for learning sportsmanship and social skills.

As if some kind of divine sign, today, the first day of all the activities, was perfectly awful. I knew Paul would be fretting about starting his class. That's why I roped Mark into dropping him off today. When I called Mark for an update, he said Paul had been weepy and that I probably wanted to get there early (so I'd be waiting for him, not vice versa). While Paul was at school, I had brought Ben to my mom's while I took Gus to drop-in at the Y and went for swim. I ran back to pick up Ben to take him to his class and was supposed to have plenty of time - and I would have had the Clovis parking lot not been a nuthouse. Yes, that's nobody's fault but my own for failing to have foresight. Nevertheless, I flew into a mini road rage trying to get out of the full parking lot and to a spot on the street. I called the driver in front of me an idiot for taking too long to make her move; meanwhile Ben, I'm sure, looked on in horror at my bad behavior.

I reached Paul's classroom at the appointed time, but the door was open already and other parents had begun picking up their children. Paul sat sobbing while an aide patted his back. "He was fine until he thought you were going to be late," she said. Great. I got him calmed down and brought Ben to his class. "These kids all look older than me," Ben worried. I assured him he was in the right place and left with Paul and Gus to run to Shopko to get the boys snacks and drinks before Paul started T-ball. When I was at the store, my cellphone rang, which almost never happens, and I was so surprised that I dropped it on the floor and it stopped ringing. I didn't have time to think about it: we were running late for T-ball.

Once at T-ball, Paul and Gus dropped into their normal, comfortable roles. Paul, watching me like a hawk to make sure I was in sight at all times, Gus, running away from me at every opportunity, ensuring that I would not be in Paul's sight at all times. At one point, I was chasing Gus around, and Paul came to our spot for a drink. I saw him, but he could not see me. "I want you to stay close!" he wailed. In the meantime, Ben came to the field as planned after his class. It turned out that I had gotten the time wrong, that his class wasn't starting until later. The phone call. He had played computer in the lab during the other class, and now he actually had to go to his class.

Ben ran back to the school, and I realized that I didn't know when his class ended. I called Mark and asked him to call the school and figure it out, as I was more than a little frazzled - and still chasing after Gus. He called the school, and the secretary told him that she couldn't help him, that summer school is separate from Clovis. She gave Mark the phone number, and of course it rang and rang. Mark called the Clovis secretary again, and she told him that though the summer school office is ADJACENT to the Clovis office, she couldn't do anything to help. The best thing, she said, would be to come to the office in person to straighten it out. So Mark left work to do just that. Finally, we figured it out. By this time, it was past our normal lunchtime, and Paul, Gus and I were tired and hungry. My mom agreed to pick up Ben after his class, and finally we headed home.

Later, when we were playing outside, Ben accidentally squirted me with the hose. I glared at him and said his name in that just-so way. He burst into tears. When I asked why he was crying, he blurted, "You've been in a bad mood all day! And I didn't like it when you called that person an idiot!" I told him he was right, that I had been in a bad mood all day and tried to explain that I was wrong to call the other person a name, that I was only worried about getting to Paul.

The first day of the first full week of summer, and I had managed to damage Ben, making him witness my bad behavior, and I scarred Paul, when I turned up late and failed to stay in sight. At least Gus was spared. Unless you count all those YouTube videos I let him watch while I prepared supper. (One of them he chose was a "My Friends Tigger and Pooh" that was in some language that sounded to me like a cross between French and Japanese - turns out it was Thai. Do I score some points for making him more cultured?) The summer is young. We'll see if I can manage to do more good than harm.