Educating Tiny

With school starting again, I have been a little anxious about how my youngest will fare out back in a traditional group setting. Tiny Man is best one-on-one and gets bored easily. He is, as I have told his teacher, THAT child in the classroom-- the one that stands out, the one that doesn't conform, and often cluelessly so. I understand the exasperation of his teachers, as I am drawn to that point myself some days; it is hard to be THE mother of THAT child. At least now, with some of his acts of defiance in the past, I can find those things amusing.

Late last year, I was called by the assistant principal because my five-year-old son had, according to her report, kicked and punched three kids while waiting in the lunch line. It wasn't the first call I had, and wouldn't be even close to the last. When I picked him up from school, I told him that sometimes I was embarrassed to be his mother.

"Why?" Tiny whined.
"You beat up three kids at school today!" I snapped. My son's brow furrowed in a moment of confusion and he quickly corrected me, "It was TWO!"

You see my point. Months before, I had gotten a tired and irritable email from his teacher who wrote to document all the craziness he had performed that day, and then added that right at the moment she was writing, he was flicking balls of foil around the room and refusing to follow the Spanish teacher's directions. He had worn everyone completely out.

"This is precisely why I don't teach anymore," I responded. "Good luck with that."

Honestly, we worked very hard with his teacher to help shape my son's mischief into bouts of productivity and compliance. For every good effort he made at school, we rewarded it at home. For his more disruptive episodes, we withdrew privileges. And yes, headway was made. This year, we have taken a more proactive approach knowing what we know about our son and what he tends to do, such as why, for example, he might have lost bus riding privileges last year.

"Son," I said on the first morning of school. "Keep it in your pants on the bus. Understand?"
Tiny heaved a sigh of massive resignation. "Okaaaayyyyy."

Simple Procedures? Not with Children!

When rearing children, everything is a project. I'll never know why, but following simple procedures is beyond the still-developing minds of the very young. Take, for example, trying to leave the house with children.

The other day, I told my eleven year old what time it was, what she needed to do to be ready for riding lessons, and what time we were leaving. (Sounds organized--doesn't it?) My son should have been less complicated; all he needed was his shoes. Instead, this is what happened:

"Tiny? Tiny. What are you doing? Put that down. Clean that up. Where are your shoes? Are those your shoes? Behind you, where you have been playing. Those? All mixed up with your toys? Put your shoes on. No, put that down. Get your shoes. No, son, other foot. No, that shoe. Okay, finish putting on your shoes. Come downstairs when you have cleaned up your mess."

Meanwhile, his sister walked the house in riding breeches and stockinged feet, saying, "I can't find my helmet. It's not in the silver tub."
"I know it's not in the silver tub, sweetheart. It doesn't belong there. Go check your room."
"But it was in the silver tub!"
"It was not in the silver tub and doesn't belong there. Go check your room."
"I checked my room. It's not there!"
"So go check the car, then." Chicken Little headed to the SUV and explored the trunk and recesses under the back seat bench. Meanwhile, this was now taking place:

"Tiny, choose one toy to take with you. No. One. One toy. I see you have two. Fork over the one in your shirt. Hand it to Mommy." Tiny held his ground, one Transformer toy clutched in his hand and the other clumsily concealed in his shirt. (Mind you sometimes he shoves things in his pants and I have to frisk him before we leave a store.) With no cooperative movement from my son, I began the count. "One." Still he stood feet planted and fingers clenched about the two toys. "Two." He stared back unblinking.
"Three. Time out. Go to your room." Crying, tears, and the usual, "Whhhhhyyyyyyyy?" As he headed upstairs, my daughter came back into the house and said she couldn't find her helmet.

"Oh, dude. You lost your helmet. Geez. Ok, maybe it's at the ranch." The price of a new helmet ran through my head briefly. "Just go check your room one more time. That is where your helmet belongs."
"But--"
"Just do it. Go on. Check again to be sure."

Eventually, my daughter came downstairs with her helmet that had been hanging on her bedroom wall the entire time. She showed it to me sheepishly. You can't miss the helmet; it sports a lime-green and polka-dotted cover. So, helmet in hand, daughter's boots pulled on, we called down the little guy, and he showed me he was ready with his one toy (and nothing shoved up his shirt or down his pants). As the kids headed to the car to climb in, I turned to Juju who had been calmly observing the circus from her safe position on the couch and I said, "Do you see why I am exhausted before I even get out the door? Why does everything have to be a project?"

My days of simple exits and entrances are over for still another few years. There's fooling with the booster seats and the untwisting seat belts; reminders of retrieving book bags, lunch boxes, permission slips, and sports equipment; making sure the little guy doesn't get his fingers or toes slammed in the car door by his sister; making sure neither vacuous child gets hit by a car while entering or exiting my vehicle; stopping the arguing over who touched whose toy in the back seat. What kills me is when I am told I will miss these days. I was told that when my kids were babies, too. No, with those days done, I do not miss them. And as much as I adore my children, I won't miss trying to get them out of the house on time either.

Pink Houses

I know my son is unwell when he cries over small matters, such as not being able to find his true desire: a pink house with a pool in the real estate magazine I gave him. My son, beloved little creature, house-shops at the precious age of four. He is obsessed with real estate magazines, which he eagerly procures from those curbside magazine and newspaper stands in town.

Today, home with a case of strep throat, my son occupied himself quietly while I wrapped up a load of administrative duties at my desk. To reward him, I gave him the latest copy of some grand estate brochure—one that showcases million dollar homes with loads of lush acreage, customized marble flooring, or fancy outdoor kitchens. I no longer look in these magazines myself because they are a form of torture.

Tiny Man slapped the magazine with the back of his hand, complained about the glossy paper being resistant to marker (which he had tried to use to circle his choices), and whined about how he could not believe there was not one pink house in this edition. I tried not to laugh, but couldn’t help myself. Scooping him up, I checked his forehead, carried him upstairs, and tucked him in bed for a nap.

Sweet dreams, little man. And lullabies of pink houses. 

Gratitude: A Scoop on Poop

This holiday, most bloggers are eloquently posting their gratitude for friends, family, sound shelter, and the like. While I too am thankful for those things, I spent part of my week being absolutely overwhelmed with a certain compassion provided by strangers: the patience of women who wait in restroom lines because my son is taking a twenty minute poop.


God bless mothers. We put ourselves at great risk each time we boldly venture out of our homes with small children who roll us naively into predicaments. This applies to situations as seemingly mundane as a trip out for coffee and a cookie, especially when a trip to the restroom is likely to be involved.

“This is such hard work!” my four year old said as he strained on the toilet at Starbucks recently. Meanwhile, I was beginning to panic; we’d already endured one knock on the restroom door from a waiting woman. A few minutes after calling out that the room was occupied, my son was still working on some kind of mass production. I stuck my head out the door, murmured an explanation and apology, and retreated back toilet-side to anxiously encourage my son.

“Hurry up, son!”

“I has one more poop!” he said.

After we washed up and left, the young lady outside the restroom was most gracious despite what must have been an uncomfortably pressing bladder. My wee boy tripped happily and lightly past her the way my dog does after relieving her own discomfort in the yard. While many women see the post-poop dance and are amused by it, I have experienced incredibly rude remarks from a few angry non-mothers. I tell them I cannot control my son’s poop. (Sorry, ladies, but if you believe that you can control a boy’s poop now, just wait until you enter a relationship with a grown man when shit becomes a metaphor for something else.)

Lately, I am often trapped near the public toilet waiting for my son to finish up his dedicated service. I have thought about constructing some kind of sign that reads “Small Child at Work” to hang on restroom doors when we regretfully discover that the restroom is a single stall experience and that something other than urine will run afoul. To that sign I would make, I should add these words: “Please pardon anything you hear while you wait!”

“Come on, baby, you can do it!” I’ll say.

“Otay, Mommy!”

“People are waiting. Are you finished yet?”

“I still has poop.” (This statement is followed by a massive grunting sound from the small child.)

“Sweetheart, don’t touch that. And no, it’s not time to play with your wiener. Hurry up!”

“Mommy, my poop is stuck. I need help.”

“Focus, Tiny. You can do it!”

Anyone hearing applause from inside a restroom has to know massive accomplishment has taken place in there. Mothers spend the first several years of a child’s life teaching incredible life skills including proper hygiene and relieving oneself. We need all the understanding we can get while our children are so young. Not only are we teaching our sons to not spray the walls with those little firehoses of pee they wield, but how to wipe their own bottoms without spreading fecal matter on the toilet seat. This is a kind of work that requires surprising diligence and fortitude. Anytime my son needs to use a public restroom, I freeze and hope he does not have to conduct the dreaded number two. I pray that if a line of women develop outside, that these women will be understanding, gracious, and patient.

This weekend at a restroom near the highway, we took a break from travel, and Tiny once again parked himself on the throne. When he was done, the woman waiting outside was so kind to us about having been made to wait. To her and to all women who wait on small children to conduct small, but serious business, this mother is grateful. Thank you!

Pink, Puke, and Pedialyte

My son has a stomach bug.


Let’s just say I won’t be eating vegetable soup for a while. Or cherry-flavored Fruit Chillers for that matter. In fact, pink will have taken on a rather unsavory association for quite some time. Yesterday afternoon, Little Man was devastated when his puke was no longer colorful, his system having violently eradicated the vegetable soup for good. We solved that problem with the unwise choice of the Chiller for dinner. He woke twice since that semi-digested meal to explore what pink does on blue sheets, white towels, his mother’s clothes…. And all of upstairs reeked with bittersweet cherry odor.

We bathed the little tyke three times in six hours, and myself once. The third set of sheets is now on his bed, which put me in a tizzy because the first set had not even made it to the dryer when the second set was stripped from the bed. More laundry passed through those machines in a few hours than in the last month. A carpet I had rolled up to donate to Goodwill was an unfortunate victim of spew as well, and I heaved it into the alley by the garbage last night sometime between one spell of his vomit and an ensuing spell of diarrhea.

At one point, I banned my husband to the home office because someone in this house needed to remain well enough to care for the next puker, which I guarantee will be me in 24 hours. He supervised the damage and patiently performed concierge and nurse duties (Ginger ale, please! Bath water, please! Pedialyte, please!) only to decide that tonight just might not be a night for romance. He’d had a surprise, he said. I’m hoping it wasn’t a pink nightgown and cherry-scented bath oil.