Earth Chattering Goals

One of my goals in starting this blog was to blog about all the fabulous, fun and challenging things my sons have been up to. But this goal seems to conflict directly with another very important goal I have - to try as much as possible to actively listen to my boys.

The problem really comes in with my three-year old, Robbie, who chatters non-stop! He is a lively kid with a super imagination and he describes all his imaginative moments in a blow-by-blow account of what is happening in fantasy land. And, God forbid, you don't listen or make a less than appropriate response. "Mom, why are you not listening to me!?" If you even miss a beat, the whole scenario gets described again...!

As an example of what he can chatter on about, he even describes his bowel movements: "That's the daddy (one), and the mommy (one). Now I am waiting for the last kid! He is a scream - very funny and constantly entertaining. My husband and I adore his lively banter, his sweet stories and his great sense of humour.

I decided long ago that there would come a time when my boys no longer chatted as much as usual. (I am hoping that this is a short lived phase at the height of adolescence and not a moment longer!) And therefore I was going to cherish every moment that they are able to freely and easily chittychat away.

What this means, is that for most of my time at home I am not able to concentrate on anything for very long. At any given moment I have a million things running around in my brain and  Robbie chatting away wanting a fully involved reply.

Help!

Real Moms Are Not Perfect

"When did they stop putting toys in cereal boxes?

When I was little, I remember wandering the cereal aisle ... and picking my breakfast cereal based on what the reward was... I could suffer through raisin bran for a month if it meant I got the magic ring at the end.

I cannot admit this out loud. In the first place, we are all expected to be supermoms these days, instead of admitting that we have flaws. It is tempting to believe that all mothers wake up feeling fresh every morning, never raise their voices, only work with organic food, and are equally at ease with the CEO and the PTA.

Here's a secret: Those mothers don't exist. Most of us - even if we'd never confess - are suffering through raisin bran in the hopes of a glimpse of that magic ring.

I look very good on paper... In real life I have to pick superglue out of the carpet, rarely remember to defrost dinner, and plan to have 'because I said so' engraved on my tombstone.

Real mothers wonder why experts who write for Parents and Good Housekeeping... seem to have their acts together all the time when they themselves can barely keep their heads above the stormy seas of parenthood.

Real mothers don't listen with humble embarrassment to the elderly lady who offers unsolicited advice in the checkout line when a child is throwing a tantrum. We take the child, dump him in the lady's cart and say 'Great. Maybe you can do a better job.'

Real mothers know that its okay to eat cold pizza for breakfast.

Real mothers admit it is easier to fail at this job than to succeed.

If parenting is a box of raisin bran, then real mothers know the ratio of flakes to fun is severely unbalanced. For every moment that your child confides in you, or tells you he loves you, or does something unprompted to protect his brother that you happen to witness, there are many more moments of chaos, error and self-doubt.

Real mothers do not speak the heresy, but they sometimes secretly wish they'd chosen something for breakfast other than this endless cereal.

Real mothers worry that other mothers will find the magic ring, whereas they'll be looking and looking for ages.

Rest easy, real mothers. The very fact that you worry about being a good mom means that you already are one."

Excerpt taken from Jodi Picoult's new book "House Rules"

The Culprit

On Thursday, I was a real mom. Definitely not a perfect mom or even a great mom. After a difficult day of Alex sulking and kicking in his heels and refusing to walk ...refusing to eat lunch...being told he hates my rules...leaving my beloved Mnemba cap in the Sun City shuttle...and just being all about me, me, me and I want, I want, I want, I was mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted. 

Then came dinner at the local restaurant... Given a choice between ribs and pizza, Robbie ordered pizza and Alex ordered ribs. They then went and played some arcade games but when they came back begging for more money, the answer was no. Alex was seriously unimpressed. And then, when their food arrived, Robbie had a case of serious order envy and refused to eat his pizza declaring he wanted ribs. All attempts to get Alex to share fell in vain on stubborn ears. Finally, after holding my head in my hands on the table while I held back tears, I succumbed and ordered Robbie ribs. While waiting for them, after initially refusing to share, Alex declared that he was full - after just 2 ribs!!

Robbie then had a monumental tantrum when his ribs finally arrived because they have been plated on a plate that is smaller than Alex's. After pleading with the waitress to please change the plate and then literally placing his plate on top of Alex's to prove they are indeed the same size, he started to complain that Alex got onion rings and he didn't. Thankfully, I quickly nipped this particular delusion in the bud.

At last, ready to leave I reached for my bag to pay the bill, only to find that it was GONE! I was in a total tizz thinking of all the items that were now missing and wondering how I was going to get all the admin of a stolen handbag and purse - not to mention the loss of the R1000 I just drew - done at Sun City. The waitress and her manager were also in complete state.

From across the pool I noticed Alex sauntering back with my bag over his shoulder! He had taken it to get more money to play the arcade games! I gave him a few choice words, a f*cking good hiding and then promptly burst into tears right then and there in the restaurant.

Alex quickly followed suit, and then Robbie. After I apologised to the staff I tried to regain my composure and paid the bill. We walked back to our unit in silence - a boy holding each hand until... "Mom, do you know why I am sad?" Alex said. "Why, Boy?" "I am sad with myself for making you cry." Bless him.

However, I am constantly amazed by how short-lived their remorse and fledgling signs of empathy are. Soon they were back to sulking, fighting with each other, tantrums and turmoil. And I was back on my hamster wheel, searching endlessly for that magic ring.

Like Gum On Their Shoes... I Just Won't Go Away

Or will I...

I have been desperate for a break from the boys.  Not that I don't love and adore them, but because motherhood - hell, parenthood, is tough! It is hard work to be so constantly present, conscious and strategic in the choices and decisions we make and the behaviour we model. In fact its impossible to be so, well, 'perfect' all the time. It is not only the physicality of these parenting demands, but also the emotional, intellectual and spiritual investments we make. And the remorse and guilt when I fall off the trying-to-be-a-great-mom-wagon is doubly exhausting. I'm not even striving to be a perfect mom. I long ago settled for being a "good enough mom". For those of you who are parents, I guess I don't need to convince you that this is a tough job - I can already see you nodding your virtual heads.

Anyway, I needed a break, so off I went on a weekend to Dubai to see my great friend Ali. Five days of relaxing, catching up and SHOPPING! Ah, bliss! I got back on the plane feeling really relaxed and refreshed.

Unfortunately I wasn't home an hour before I began to feel completely overwhelmed again. The fallout from a trip away from home began to unravel and it almost instantly felt like I was being punished.

I'd love to be your friend, but I need to be your Mom!

Lately, it has been brought to my attention the importance of being parents in our boys’ lives and not trying to be their friends all the time. Being a parent is really hard at times though. It involves setting boundaries and enforcing them; saying "no" about 200 times more than saying yes. It’s about broadening your boy’s horizons, not trying to maximise his pleasure.

One of my friend’s sons needs glasses. He does not want to wear them so they have resorted to bribery. The glasses will come with a brand new truck, chosen by the boy at the toy store – and then furtively smuggled to the optometrist in time for the collection of said spectacles. When I asked if the truck would be taken away if her son did not wear his glasses, she put her hand over her heart and said, “I can’t do that to my baby!” Since becoming a parent myself, I understand to well the meaning of tough love…

Of course we’d love nothing more than to make our little treasures continually happy. But how does saying “yes” and letting them do what they want to do work out in the long term. Not so well, I’d say.

Friendship is a reciprocal relationship between social peers. Our sons are not our social peers. You have the authority to limit or monitor your son’s exposure to television, the Internet and junk food. He does not have the right to do the same.

Roodle's Third Birthday

19 January 2010

Robbie is three today! He is so excited and this morning asked me where his candles were and his big party cake. Difficult for him to understand the different “events” surrounding his birthday – birthday morning and presents, birthday ring at school, his best friend Tendai and his brother Khaya coming for an early birthday supper, and finally and most excruciating to wait for is his party, which he is having on Saturday. Much excitement! It is an army party, with an army cake being made by yours truly…

Robbie is such an extraordinary child. He is so kind and thoughtful. He is quick to bring his doctor’s bag if any of us have an “owie”, always says “sorry” in his little voice when he bumps someone by accident, and is quick to say “Hi” to the world. His perseverance and determination – i.e. his stubbornness (directly inherited from his father) never cease to amaze us, and at times give both Guy and I the giggles as we watch a mini version of dad hold on to the death. Who actually knows if this is nature or nurture at play? He is so often forced to wrestle Alex for a toy, a turn, or a chance, that a large part of his tenacity is probably due to “survival of the fittest.

But he adores Alex. “Echo” we call him, as he can usually be heard repeating verbatim Alex’s phrases, seconds after being uttered by his big brother.

Acorns to Oak Trees

There is a small insert on BBC's CBeebies kiddies channel where they use the analogy of an acorn turning  into an oak tree with the line "growing together". I've seen it a million times, but yesterday it really got me thinking who my little "acorns" will be when they are "oak trees"? 

I guess it all starts with who they are now, and while I have tried to describe my boys separately in order to capture their uniqueness, at his stage I have not yet found the words to do so successfully.  They are both big, strong, beautiful boys who are sensitive, stubborn, charming, good natured, (mostly) well behaved, feisty, demanding, humourous, mischievous and active boys. I know there is something different about them but I have not been able to put my finger on it yet, let alone describe it in words.

I often think about who they will be "when they are big", and I have even gone so far as to have their names and birth dates done in numerology and their astrological charts.

Both reveal that Alex will be more of the leader - no surprises - but more puzzling is that while Alex is the male archetype, Robbie is the 'mother' archetype. More nurturing and philanthropic in is ventures. Its surprising because it is hard to see at the moment. He is such a high energy, wrestling initiator at the moment, its hard to see the nurturing side. But I guess it is there... This morning when I could not find my treasured Lunar linen kaftan, and was quite upset, Robbie said, "Robbie make it better, Mommy".  Too precious!

Next to my table at the coffee shop where I am typing this up, four old men are sitting, shooting the breeze, laughing and ... SMS-ing. I hope my boys grow up to be this old, still enjoying life and each other, and in touch with the latest techno advances.

I want, I want, I want!

My son Alex is four and he is heavily 'into' Ben 10. In fact, he was into Ben 10 "stuff" before he even really knew who Ben 10 was. Of course, now that he has seen an episode or two (or 20!) of the 10-year old Ben Tennyson, who is able to fight crime by turning himself into 10 different aliens by pushing a button on his outrageously large watch, he is obsessed. And there is no shop I can take him to where I can escape the Ben 10 clothing, toys, memorabilia... And every shop we go to has a new version of Ben 10 T-shirt, or a different selection of ultra cool toys. It has become a problem in our home! How does one deal with the instant gratification needs of a four year old?

Last term, I refused to buy him a Ben 10 backpack. It was traumatic as all his friends had one. I told him that if he wanted it he had to earn it. He spent a month earning it by staying in his bed until sunrise (6:30am - yay!) each morning. Every 7 days he received a Ben 10 "lucky packet" with a surprise alien figurine in. And after 5 aliens he received his backpack. The sense of achievement and pride was palpable. He radiated happiness. I couldn't have been happier! Now though, if I recommend earning a yearned for item, he says "No, earning it is too tiring! I want it now!" Of course, "no" does not go down so well and let's just say I have a very sad, petulant and feisty boy on my hands.

Just when I had taken the stance that enough was enough, Robbie, my two and a half year old, through sheer exposure to Ben 10's "cool factor" has fallen in love with all Alex's Ben 10 gadgets and figurines. Just this morning, they had a such a tussle over THE watch, that my husband, who cannot handle these altercations, begged me to please buy Robbie his own watch. So now, I am off to buy my two year old a Ben 10 watch that costs R250! How did this happen? I thought I had at least another year before Robbie fell victim to the same obsession as Alex!