WHAT could he POSSIBLY be thinking?

Having a child who is creative, brilliant, imaginative and fearless- but who also doesn't speak makes you walk around with a confused expression on your face for most of your life.  My eyebrows seem to be permanently drawn together, my eyes are squinted and my mouth is always slightly open.  It's the exact same face I have when I'm trying to do a math problem in my head.  Mitch is the x in every equation and no matter how much scratch paper I'm given, I can never figure him out.  In fact, if he ever turns to a life of crime, I'm going to suggest the villain name of Variable.  At least three times a day I end up asking him what he's doing, or I mutter to no one in particular that I just don't know what is going on in that head of his.

Our green bathroom has two doors leading into it from different rooms, which seems to cause Mitch some confusion at times.  Yesterday the boys seemed absorbed in what they were doing so I didn't bother to lock the door behind me as I entered that bathroom.  However, the gentle latching of the door must have sounded like a gunshot to Mitch, who ran across the house to throw the door wide in order to observe.  "Mitch!  Close the door.  Mommy is going potty right now. Give me 30 seconds alone, please."  He did shut the door, bless him, but he immediately ran around through his room and opened the opposite door instead.  He honestly seemed surprised to see me there, like maybe he thought we had two green bathrooms?  Or maybe one door opened into the same bathroom just different dimensions, one in which it wasn't in use?  I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror as I was washing my hands and I had my higher math expression on again.

Yesterday he came to me with his underwear pulled up, but his pants around his ankles and carrying my hairbrush.  Where are we in the scenario?  Are we in the process of going potty and he only got the first layer on before he was distracted by the need to comb Mommy's hair?  Or was it the simple need for more corporal punishment in his life?

An alarm went off in a parked car in front of our house this morning and Mitch went nuts with needing to go out on the porch.  It was rather cold and windy out there, so I made an effort in trying to distract him at first, but the longer it went on the more disturbed he got.  I eventually shrugged and opened the door to have him run past me in a desperate blur.  He raised his fists in the air like he was at the baddest rock concert in the world and started jumping up and down in time to the honking.  When the alarm's beat changed to the siren wail he started wiggling his skinny rear end back and forth and up and down, like a toddler version of pop, drop and lock it.  As soon as our neighbor turned off the alarm, Mitch pumped a fist, yelled "Yeah!" and went running back into the house.  Was that a personal rock concert delivered straight to his house?

During the Veteran's Day Parade he was both adorable and frustrating at the same time.  He was running out into the street when there wasn't candy then refused to go out when there was.  If he DID go out to pick some up he'd only grab one, then raise the fructose sacrifice high with both hands in thanks to the parade gods.  After the ceremonial tribute he would meander back my way to put the candy in the stroller before running/jumping a lap around us and back out into the street.  He almost got hit by a shriner car once, and almost caused a pile up of the tiny cars another time.  Thankfully the brakes were good and the old guy driving almost went over the windshield in stopping it.  Trying to keep track of Mitch in a public venue is obviously exhausting physically, but it's also draining emotionally because you can't outsmart a vortex.  Maybe that should be his villain name; Variable Vortex.  It's catchy and frightening all at the same time.  Just like my little angel.   

Things only a five year old can say with a straight face

The following are things that Jack has said over the last few weeks that I've actually had the time to write down.  There have been countless little gems that are lost for all time because I have the memory span of a nat these days and if there isn't a pen and paper nearby, I've forgotten it as soon as it is said.  In fact, my memory is so bad that I actually put a notebook in my purse just so I can document these things the boys do/say... but the problem is that I keep forgetting that it's in there.


The last few days have been stormy and overcast, and on those days I inevitably get a mother bear of a headache.  Yesterday Jack was helping me make some chocolate chip cookies when he saw me rubbing my temple while reading the recipe:
"What's wrong, Mama?"
"Oh, I just have a headache."
"Come 'ere.  Let me see." (takes my face in his little hands and scrutinizes my forehead from inches away) "Oooh!  THAT'S a good one!  But... I think you're going to be okay."
"Thanks, doc."


During the month of October the happy meals at Mcdonald's were given out in small buckets to be used for trick or treating.  I saved two of these buckets to be used for something far different.  I put them in the cargo space of the car in case someone starts puking when we are out and about.  It's a new car and Jack already christened it in September, at which time I was desperate for a small bucket- thus the travel chucket bucket was born.  The other day I was getting groceries out of the back of the car and Jack saw the chucket buckets and wanted to take them inside to play with.  I told him that those stay in the car and that he had other buckets, jars, bins, etc. in the house for entertainment.  He started warming up for his "the world is ending" speech when I cut him off and told him to just go in the house.  Now.
Between getting Henry out of his car seat, helping Mitch go potty and putting the groceries away I completely forgot about the bucket situation, so when Jack stood in front of me with his big brown eyes swimming with unshed tears, I was confused.  I asked him what the matter was and he replied with his head held high and a good deal of lip quivering:  "Here I am, Mama(sniff).  With no bucket."  Way to pull out all the stops with the poor, brave little orphan routine.  I ALMOST caved, but I'm afraid my heart is hardened and calloused.  Instead, I handed him his Halloween bucket that still had some candy in it as a diversionary tactic.


There is a restaurant in Bisbee called Jimmy's Hot Dog's that is SO FREAKIN' GOOD it's embarrassing.  I made a fool of myself there last week when I couldn't stop myself from moaning and rolling my eyes with every bite of my fish & chips.  I was so into it that Jack kept asking me what was wrong.  He hasn't quite grasped the subtlety between pain and extreme joy for deep fried goodness(according to the child development charts that won't happen for at least 2 more years).  While we were eating, the place started to fill up with the lunch crowd and since it's a small establishment to begin with it quickly became wall to wall people.  With a name like Jimmy's Hot Dog's I feel they are targeting certain types of people, so within minutes we were surrounded by large groups of construction workers, geriatrics and based on the pamphlets they were carrying- Jehovah Witnesses.  The geriatrics settled in at a table directly behind me and were in an excited state as they visited and waited for their processed meats.  There was one particular woman who just couldn't sit still, she was flitting around the room chatting with and hugging her friends while going back and forth to the condiment table to stock up.  At one point she was right behind me, and when I say this I mean that her behind was right on me.  She stood with her backside firmly pressed against the back of my skull so that her every movement caused my head to shake like I was the one with Parkinson's.  I was afraid to pull my chair away from her though since it felt as though I was her stability post for the moment.  What if I pulled forward 2 inches and sent her toppling forward onto her friends?  I closed my eyes at the horrors of at least 5 broken hips along with some good old fashioned bone fractures.  The guy with the oxygen who needed 3 people to help him sit down might not even survive.  So I sat as still as I could and waited for her to find her seat, hopefully somewhere on a chair.  Just as I shift my eyes to meet Jordan's (who is looking at me like he doesn't know if he should cut the blue wire or the green), Jack pipes up in his best 5 year old outdoor voice and brings conversation all around us to a screeching halt.  "Mom!  There's a grandma behind you!"  I know, buddy.  Trust me.  I know.


This morning as I filled up the back of the car to bursting with a million things to donate at St. Vincent's, Jack started throwing up while belted into his car seat.  Since I had buried the afore mentioned chucket buckets underneath the donations, I was stuck with grabbing some old blankets off the top of the pile for him to use instead.  Too bad my great ideas never work out.  As I was wiping his poor little face he looked at me with the most tragic expression he has in his repertoire and said "Mom, I feel like a human sacrifice."  Wow.  That's pretty crappy, alright.

I'm sure if I sit here at the computer long enough, he will come up with something else brilliantly hilarious, but I have to go make a human sacrifice out of Mitch.  He just dumped an entire bottle of Orange Glo out on the kitchen floor and ran through it so that there are a thousand little shiny footprints all over the house.  It's like an ice rink in here and I'm tempted to just put socks on the kids for a good laugh.  My luck is that I'm the one who will fall, though.

Speak-Easy

I know that every parent experiences times of frustration when trying to figure out what in the world their child is telling them, but it seems like we have more than our fair share of them.  I have a constant headache these days from banging my head against the proverbial brick wall of Jack's reason.  The problem is, he has none.  Or maybe what's wrong is that his reasoning is so far removed from the norm that I just automatically turn towards the brick wall because it's more familiar than what he's offering.  He was speech delayed in his early development, and now it seems as though he's working overtime to make up for all the words he lost in being silent.  He throws words in our direction at a machine gun pace and in no particular order, then leaves us to decipher and construe them into meaningful conversations.

For instance, hours of my life were wasted the other morning while I tried to decode what "orange toes" meant.  He followed me in and out of every room in our house.  He even tracked me down to my closet where I was seeking solace by pretending to sort my shirts.  He stood outside the bathroom door as I was taking care of personal business.  He stood in front of me while I folded laundry and next to me as I swept the floor.  He was impossible to ignore and difficult to sidetrack.  This persistence was in the effort to obtain orange toes, and as the day progressed the want turned into a burning need.  I asked him to repeat the phrase countless times.  I asked him to draw what orange toes were.  Not surprisingly, I received a picture of oranges toe looking objects.   I even offered to color his own toes orange(this last one caused him pause while he had a brief internal struggle with himself), all to no avail.  It wasn't until around lunch time when I asked him what he wanted to eat that I figured it out.  He replied that he wanted a dead dog (this is translated into a hot dog in our world) and... ORANGE TOES!  My poor, tired brain flinched when the proverbial light bulb went on.  Granted, it was only a 20 watt bulb but that's plenty bright in a head that doesn't have much exposure.  It's more than enough to reveal cobwebs and startled things scurrying to hide from the glare.  What Jack had spent so much energy trying to get out of his dim-witted mother were Cheetos.  Are you groaning with the obvious simplicity of it all yet?  Just to be sure I had it right, I held up a bag of Fritos and asked him what they were, to which he answered with a haughty confidence that they were yellow toes.

I'm grateful that Jack at least tries to tell me what he wants however, because I also have Mitch to help through the day.  Bless his loving heart, but there are monkeys that communicate more effectively than he does.  He doesn't indicate that he wants any color of toes let alone what he wants to eat, he instead starts crying and I immediately begin a game of high stakes charades.  After I do an EMT assessment on his little body to make sure nothing is broken or bleeding, I start acting out his favorite scenarios to see if anything makes the crying stop.  Sometimes I'm sure he's stopped crying not because I've nailed down what he wants, but because I'm highly amusing pretending to ride a bike, dribble a ball and take a bath all at the same time.  You find out rather quickly that you don't have the ability to be embarrassed after you've had kids.

This is how I keep mentally fit.  There are scholars out in the world working in ancient or dead languages who don't tax their brains as much as I do on a daily basis just trying to survive the day.  

Welcome Baby Hendry!

Henry Thomas Everett was born on July 2nd, 2012- 15 days before his original due date, but he weighed 8 lbs. 2 oz. and was 19 in. long.  I guess that explains my waistline being similar to that of a small planet.  

Jack pronounces his baby brother's name as Hendry and unfortunately it just trips off the tongue, so we all end up calling him that as well.  Everyone but Mitch, that is.  He just maniacally tickles him, presses his forehead to Hendry's and squeals his catch phrase "diddle-diddle-do!" then runs away to Henry's laughter.  Henry adores his older brothers.  Mitch is the most exciting person he's ever met (now that I think about it, I think he's the most exciting that I've ever met too.), and Jack is so kind and helpful.  He hands Henry toys to play with, helps him with his binky and covers him up when it's chilly.  Together with a mom and dad who adore him, what more does a baby need?  Not a thing, baby Hendry has it all and is the happiest of people.

Life here in the Everett household has pretty much gone back to normal since the upheaval of Henry's almost premature arrival.  I've gone right back to being completely obsessive about house cleaning and organizing.  I thought that maybe I had turned a new leaf with having to let things go for the 20 weeks of bed rest that we all endured.  I pretty much stopped thinking about scrubbing the floors and tiny fingerprints on the windows.  It didn't bother me at all to know that the baseboards hadn't been washed in 4 months, in fact it didn't even cross my mind.  It was somewhat liberating to just take one day at a time with the feeling of gratitude for everyone involved in helping us get through that day.  Now?  Hahaha!  I'm insane.  It's like I've got all this pent up OCD madness fighting to break loose every day.  The baseboards drive me up the wall (no pun intended), the fingerprints on the windows are a never ending drama and don't even get me started on the ceiling fans!  Thursday I spent the day hauling every single thing out of the shed and repacking and organizing the boxes.  Why, you ask?  Because it was dirty.  Ugh.  I KNOW!  I can't control myself.  

I am a lot more relaxed about what the boys do now.  Before Baby Hendry, I jumped up and ran to whatever sounds of destruction I heard.  Now, at most I cock an ear to listen for broken glass or life threatening screams.  Occasionally I yell something dumb like "Be careful!" in their general direction then mentally check 'safety control' off my to-do list for the day.  The only purpose those words serve is to act as a disclaimer for parents everywhere who want to distance themselves from the mayhem. The children don't have a clue what I could possibly mean and thus continue to try to kill themselves and each other.  If things get out of hand and I hear crying I will stop what I'm doing for 30 seconds to see if they come to me for comfort.  If they don't, I am free to carry on with my day.  If they do come running to me I'm on full time duty and because I was alert enough to get the disclaimer out in time for this incident, I feel comfortable in rubbing their tear streaked faces in their misfortune.  I gather the little turkey(s) into my arms to snuggle and kiss and tickle- all the while telling them that it's their own fault they got hurt when jumping off the bed onto their brother when Mommy TOLD you to be careful.  Sometimes I think that the only reason I can sleep at night is because I'm just too exhausted to stay up wallowing in my own guilt.  That, and the fact that the kids seem to be alright.  

As I wrote this last sentence, Mitch was running/hopping on the hardwood and ending up slamming his face into the floor. I try not to remind them that they weren't being careful when there's blood involved. I do have lines I won't cross, just so you know.

There is no rest in bed rest.

Laying around all day is HARD.  When you are a mother of two little boys under the age of 4 you never get a moment to just sit and enjoy life passing you by.  You begin to crave solitude and the thought of a lazy day can leave you weeping with longing.  Your first thought when told that you MUST lie down and let others do what needs to be done is "hallelujah- finally!"  But that feeling of relief is quickly gone, only to be replaced with anxiety, guilt, frustration and anger.  Anxiety because you start to think about all the things that need to be done, and 'how is it all going to be accomplished while I lay here?'  Guilt comes in when you see how things are going to be accomplished- people who love you drop everything and rush in to help.  It's incredibly difficult to let go and allow others to wash your floor, cook you food and fold your underwear.  Do you know how much I struggle every time I ask someone to get me a drink of water?  It's such a simple thing, and my brain tells me that I am perfectly capable of getting my own drink, so what in the world am I doing making someone else get up for me?  I've had long talks with myself about my need for independence and also about acceptance.  I'm not sure yet if I'm listening or not, but I've learned to relax and prioritize a lot more.  I think.

The frustration and anger come into play because I am the mother of two boys under the age of 4 who have realized that mommy can't chase them down and beat them anymore.  The first couple weeks I was still able to intimidate them with looks and voice, but recently that has lost it's impact.  They now stand just out of my arm's reach, hitting each other over the head with t-ball bats while making eye contact with me, like they are daring me to do something about it.  You should have seen Mitch's face the first time I threw the nearest thing (a stuffed bear) at his head.  I think I also screamed something inane like "Stop hitting!".  Unfortunately that only worked for a few days before they caught on that they could duck and weave their way through mayhem with minimal injuries.  It turns out that Mitch is actually a natural runner in the serpentine fashion.

I've had to re-evaluate what's important for long term child development to get into a disciplinary frame of mind.  For instance: is it vital to their upbringing that I get up to stop Mitch from taking a swing at his brother's head with a 2 ft rubber shark as Jack continuously rides his bike past the doorway where Mitch is lurking?  Since they are both laughing I decide that no, it's not.  Now I only move for screams and property damage, and honestly the kids seem to be thriving.  Maybe I'll have to employ this reasoning after I'm allowed back into the fray.  Actually, it might not even be up to me.  We will be outnumbered since there will be three of the little monkey's running around and I might just be tucked into a defensive position until they leave for college.

Dads in the Playplace

Have you ever observed a dad with his children at the McDonald's play-place?  The difference from that of a mom taking her kids to play is truly unbelievable.  Last week I was lucky enough to watch a couple of dads in action, and the experience was one to enjoy.

We were in Sierra Vista's McDonald's, so the customer base is primarily military and it shows.  On this particular day there was at least one father present who had the army mentality, and bless his heart he was being overrun by the enemy.  I know he was probably there to give the mom some much needed alone time to 1. relax, 2. run errands or 3. run away to Fiji, but it will probably be awhile before this dad braves the torture of the hamster like tunnels alone again.

This young father had two little girls, both under the age of 3 and both were delicate, tiny and sweet little things.  They were so fragile and beautiful that I wanted to cradle them in my arms and kiss their tiny faces.  But that was a mom's reaction, not a dad's.  Dad's don't coddle, they instruct, motivate and encourage.

After the girls finished their food, the older of them made it up to the top of the play-place only to get trapped in a corner that was too deep for her to crawl out of.  The well she fell into was conveniently located next to a Plexiglas window, thus ensuring that everyone seated below got a front and center ticket to watch her tear stained face plead with her daddy for assistance.  Her loving but distracted father told her she was fine and to just come down the slide, not knowing that she was trapped.  The more he told her she was fine the harder she cried, pressing her tiny distressed face into the window and asking for mommy.  I know she was thinking "Mommy would have been up here by now, and I really would be fine.  This yahoo is going to get me killed."  While dad yelled obscure instructions, another family's little girl went to the aid of the trapped princess but soon realized rescue was beyond her 4 year old capabilities and told the dad flat out that he needed to come up.  I had to admire the guy's go get 'em attitude when he realized that there was no getting out of it.  He asked one more time "I really need to come up?" and when confronted with two scared little faces nodding down at him, he took one last deep breath of fresh air and ascended into hell.  As soon as he disappeared from view, his younger daughter let out a frantic wail and tried to follow.  However, she was just over a year old and wasn't capable of negotiating the ladder, so she started up the steps on the opposite end of the gym, yelling for daddy all the while.  This poor dad was trying to yell encouragement to the trapped princess in the tower, as well as soothing platitudes to the abandoned sweetheart at the bottom.  Neither daughter was swallowing the lines he was feeding them and both grew ever more panicked and vocal.

When the overwhelmed dad lost sight of the smaller girl and couldn't get a reassuring response from her, my husband took pity on him and started yelling out directions that only another dad would understand.  "You've got a bogie coming in hot on your six" was answered hollowly with a "Copy that" from somewhere in the labyrinth of the plastic tunnels overhead.  Jordan turned to me and said that you know that the outing has reached it's conclusion when you need someone to vector you in on your kids, and sure enough- as soon as the weeping and sweaty little family was all safe on the ground, dad announced that it was time to go find mommy.  Both girls seemed relieved with the news, and I imagine the reunion with their mother was all the sweeter for their near death experience at McDonald's.  I'm sure dad was probably pretty relieved to have mom around again too.

Planetary Vacation

It's official.  I've reached the level of pregnancy that makes me think I'm as big as a small planet.  It's happened far sooner this time around than with my other pregnancies, and I think the reason for this is because of the early bed rest.  All I do all day is lay around and get bigger.  Not good for my self esteem, or the furniture.  Trying to get into and out of bed becomes a routine that would headline successfully in any circus, and I often hum the classic "circus tune" while gasping and rolling around, struggling with pillows.  The truly awful part of the ritual is that as soon as I'm finally comfortable, heaving a huge relieved sigh, I suddenly realize that I need to use the restroom.  Now.  Or, I need to sit up because of heartburn.  And thus, the night progresses.

I am 27 weeks into my pregnancy and cannot see my feet.  I am sure they are there because I use them to ferret out small toys and random legos, but I'm not sure anymore what they look like.  Sometimes someone will tell me that they are swollen, and I nod like I already had this bit of information, but truthfully I'm just relieved to hear they are still visible and recognizable as feet.  If they itch, I am doomed.  They might as well be on the moon for all the good it does me trying to scratch.  I roll around, rubbing my feet together like some sort of mad cricket, wishing for shorter legs or monkey arms in order to reach the sole of my foot.

Every time there's a knock at the door I think there is a very good chance that it's scientists with truckloads of equipment in order to document the all the seismic activity originating from this location.  I'm prepared to show them how difficult it is to get in and out of a bed on risers when you don't know where your feet are, but I just don't know how I'll feel when I'm asked to become someone's thesis.  Or maybe NASA will have a request to send me into orbit as a planetary stand-in for Pluto while it goes in for repairs for a faulty axis.  I might even be a natural disaster waiting to happen and measures need to be taken to get me off planet before I shift the Earth's gravitational pull beyond what's safe.  Here's a friendly warning: If one day soon, you are going about your daily life and the entire world seems to tilt crazily, I don't want you to have to wonder what's going on.  Your first thought can now be "She's reached critical mass!" and make life saving decisions accordingly.

I have 9 more weeks at minimum, before Henry arrives (personal goal, anyway) and there's no telling how much bigger I will get.  I'm hoping it won't get to the point of calling the National Guard to get me out of the house when it's time to go to the hospital, but I'm not going to be surprised if the doctors ask me if they can document the last few months "for science".  Sometimes I worry about trying to get in shape after Henry is here, but then I remember I have Mitch and I realize that if I just shadow him every day, I will be rail thin in weeks.  I'm pretty sure he'd be a fat child if he had a different personality, so I think it's a solid work out plan to just mimic his movements until I reach my goal weight again.  That's what I'm banking on, anyway.  However, I try not to think that far in advance right now, or I'll go nuts.  Day by day, pound by pound, is the strategy and it's working so far.