Oh mornings, how you thwart me!

The time between when I finally decide to stop hitting the snooze button, turn off the Canadian newscaster and get out of bed, to the time I must exit the house in order to drop off the boys at their respective sitters and get to work before my students stage a walk-out is 50 minutes. If it was just me, that would not be a problem. If it was just me and Paul, I'd still be okay. But it's not. While my youngest son does not share any of my genetic material, he most decidedly shares my love for procrastination. He is my payback for all those times I asked for "One more drink" before bed, for the "I'll be right there I'm just looking for something" and the "That? Oh, I'll put it away later." If there is a way to avoid an uncomfortable task, John has figured it out. Our mornings involve moments when he can't possible wear the sneakers that are right by the door and instead must rifle through the basket to find a different pair. With a 50 minute window, 15 of which is generally reserved for getting the boys dressed and out the door, it just doesn't fly. And then the yelling starts. Not an especially fun way to start the morning I will admit. But as time is ticking away, I begin to imagine the traffic pile up that occurs in front of my school each morning as the parents of children who have equal if not greater procrastination issues perform the "my kid couldn't POSSIBLY take the bus" drop-off ritual (but that is another post entirely). And I start to yell. An odd moment of clarity came last week when John reported to his grandparents that sometimes I announce that he is going to be left behind. (Which I would never do, so don't go calling the authorities - I am just the queen of idle threats.) He used my first name when telling the story, which made it pretty cute. AND THERE IS THE PROBLEM RIGHT THERE. John is really freaking cute. And he uses that cuteness to get away with obnoxious behavior, like complete and total meltdowns when he cannot successfully employ his procrastination strategy. I know, I know. He is three. And three year olds want control, blah blah blah. But when I give him choices and try to empower him, he always picks the non-choice.
"Do you want apple or grapes for dinner?"
"Plum."
"We don't have any plums. It's the middle of winter. Apple or grape?"
"PLUM!"
"Honey, we don't have any plums." Cue meltdown.
I am at a bit of a loss as to how best to ride this current storm. Meltdowns at 6 am are no fun. Especially when they follow things like this: "Boys, stop jumping naked on the bed and get dressed already!" This past week I decided to institute a checklist that each child must follow in order to get us out the door by the required time. Paul and I brainstormed a list for him, wrote it down, tacked it in his room, and he dutifully follows it (although he tries to skip the steps that involve helping his brother). Paul is a Jedi. Give him a task and he will execute it. For John, I used magazine clippings and crudely drawn stick figures for his list, and he too was successful. Up until we came downstairs and he had to put on his coat. There was two minutes left before the target exit time.
"You can wear your orange coat or your blue coat."
"I want my raincoat."
"You left it in daddy's car and he's already gone. Besides, it's going to be sunny today."
"I WANT MY RAAAAIN COOOOOAT!"
Deep breath. "Let's just wear the blue one. C'mon."
"Can I have a boonana?"
"There aren't any. I need to get more from the store." Cue meltdown.
Overall, we did do much better this week that we had in previous weeks. Mommy didn't yell, and the boys made general progress on the road to independence. If I can just figure out the magic formula to keep the meltdowns at bay...

Cake Victory!

Last year Paul flippantly mentioned that he didn't really want a cake, but as his birthday approached he changed his mind. I was able to convince him that a Ninjago ninja would be a good idea because I figured a head was a lot simpler that some three-dimensional crazy Star Wars vehicle like last year. It was. My inspiration:

 

For those readers who don't follow Lego Ninjago, the Green Ninja is  more powerful than his other-colored buddies, and he was coveted by all the boys at Paul's elementary school this past year. See, in a clever marketing campaign, you could only get the green ninja mini-figure when you bought the Lego Ninjago Character Encyclopedia. Which the book fair sold out of in about 10 minutes. And which totally awesome Aunt Chrissy bought Paul for Christmas (innocently remarking, "Does Paul have that ninja character book thing?") Needless to say, the Green Ninja is pretty awesome, and I knew it would be a relatively easy cake to create. The trickiest part was the gold piece on his helmet. To make it, I softened caramel candies, rolled them out and pieced them together. It looked a bit like a jock strap and was only  partially edible due to the waxed paper sticking if the caramel was too melty, but it did the trick. The mask is made of fruit roll ups which I had to separate because they were in a rainbow pack. (The broken caramel and two-thirds unused roll-ups led to a bit of a sugar high.) It was Paul's idea to make the eyes from jelly beans with white sprinkles from our Christmas cookie decorations. The best part? Cool-Whip makes a new frosting that is utterly and completely amazing (and lard free!). Considering I often have frosting related debacles, I was super-excited to try it and very impressed with the results. And as the hubby pointed out as we polished off the leftovers later in the week, it even frosts cut-sides!! YAY!!!

 The boy was pleased.

Now I must figure out how to create John's request: A T-Rex. Hmmmmm.... suggestions appreciated!

The Big Search

My sons are not always the most observant.

A 12 Step Program for Procrastinators

Step 1: Identify the problem
Step 2: Promise to come up with a solution tomorrow
Step 3: There was something I was supposed to do today....
Step 4: Buy a new notebook
Step 5: Write down the problem in new notebook
Step 6: Create elaborate plan for solving problem
Step 7: Begin elaborate plan! Yay!!
Step 8: Promise yourself that this time you will actually follow through
Step 9: Become distracted by the Internet, a new book, or that fuzzy on the floor
Step 10: Decide you need to vacuum
Step 11: Locate notebook under your bed
Step 12: Promise to return to elaborate plan tomorrow

To Cake or not to Cake

Last year after I put together another awesome, two-dimensional birthday cake for my eldest, he informed me that he really doesn't like cake all that much. WHAT!?!?! Fine, I replied, next year I won't make you one. Ha! What an idle threat that was. His birthday is right around the corner and while he has agreed to forgo the large friend party in order to save for a bigger, better party next year, he is not quite ready to give up the cake just yet. Once I relented (it didn't take much convincing - I look forward to the creative challenge) it was simply a matter of deciding on a design. P began to list a number of completely unrealistic possibilities. I countered with a suggestion that I knew would only require one cake. He agreed. See, every year I bake two cakes in order to complete the design, and every year most of it ends up in the trash. One cake is good. I can bring leftovers to work and anyone currently on a diet can just look the other way. P is on board with my suggestion and I have been brainstorming creative non-frosting ways to make it look authentic. Because relying on frosting is akin to cheating in my book. Anyone can frost. It takes a certain amount of creativity to figure out how to use candy, cookies and other confections to create a realistic design. I love standing in the bulk food section of the grocery store trying to figure out what I can use.
I am glad that P has decided he wants a cake and agreed to a feasible design (stay tuned). Too bad J has requested an upgrade from last year's super easy soccer ball to a dinosaur. The one with the really long neck. That's gonna be a tough one.

The Art of English

John's command of the English language cracks me up on a daily basis. He often searches for the right word/phrase and comes up just shy. Here are a few examples:
"Will you play tic-tac-two with me?"
"Why you use that chowder on your face?"
"I got fruit by the toe!" (Fruit by the Foot)
"Mom, I saw seven o'clock on my temperature."

He also has this way of talking about things that happened hours earlier as if they happened years ago.
"Mom, [re]member that time we went to my school for the ice cream social?"
"Last night?"
"Yeah. That was fun."

"Member when we ate that circle food?"
"Circle food?"
"Yeah, the one with the crab in it?"
After some thought, "You mean the sushi we ate for dinner yesterday?"
"Yeah. I like shooshi. Can we have it again for lunch?"

Sometimes we are at a loss as to what John is trying to tell us. I have learned to search for clues in his thinking patterns to figure out what the object or idea is that he can't quite name. Recently he was trying to tell me about "the thing that takes cars up into the sky" and I was completely stumped. Crane? Tow truck? Hot air balloon? Alien spacecraft? 50 guesses later he proudly announced, "Oh yeah. A tornado." Huh.

SNOW!

For the second year in a row, we are having a strange winter. Our area is known for its snow. Snow that starts in November (sometimes October) and does not let up until March. As a kid, your major calorie burner in the winter is sledding; as an adult it is shoveling. Part of the reason we moved back was because my husband loves the snow and wanted to share that love with our boys. But sadly, since coming back to the area there hasn't been much of the famed fluffy stuff. We have a great sledding hill near our house, and last winter I never even made it out there. CJ took the boys a handful of times - I think John only went with him once. When I think about my childhood and how many hours I spent careening down the hills in the parking lot across from our house, it makes me sad to think the boys are missing out on all that dangerous fun. This year didn't seem like it would be much better. We didn't get the usual lake effect storms in late fall, and we've had freak periods of extreme cold and extreme warm. Instead of snow we've had rain. It feels like I am back in the Pacific Northwest. Yesterday we finally got a nice dumping of lake effect fluff, and CJ actually got sent home early from Drill. We headed over to the hill and watched the boys have the wintertime fun they've been waiting for. Paul is learning how to ski and the hill is a perfect place for him to practice. He's only been on skis three times so far and is doing remarkably well. His biggest frustration comes from trying to click the boots into his skis!!
John has taken to sledding down the hill, face first, as fast as humanly possible. I love listening to his squeals of delight although I must add that it makes me a bit nervous to watch. As to be expected, he does not like dragging the sled back up the hill and spent some time yesterday convincing other people to do it for him (his brother, his father, our neighbors). Twice he went far enough to get stuck in a pile of fresh snow, but that only slowed him down temporarily. He even lost his boot at one point. He found it in the snow, stuck his foot back in, and kept going. It warms my heart to see such snow spirit in my boys. After all, this is now their "hometown" and I hope someday they can share good snow stories with their children. Hopefully the weird weather won't continue and we can go back to the way it was. So much snow and cold that when you get to March and the temperature reaches 50, you open up all the windows and go outside in your shorts. That's the way it should be around here!