And summer begins...

This is Maximus.
He's two and a little bit.
Wildly beautiful. Remarkably infuriating.
He bites, he claws, he screams.
Even the cousins distinguish him as the crazy one.
As in, "Watch out for crazy Max."
He cries "Hug, hug," each time he gets in trouble.
He repeats the last two words of every sentence he hears.
He says "Wake up" to Dan and me at 5 am.
He consumes 40 sippy cups a day.
He's the only boy we actually planned on conceiving.
He has a special blue blanket, and a special stuffed doggie.

He likes to do this to his little brother, Ethan.



It won't be long before my littlest man knows what's what.
And shuts down his abuser.
Oh Max. Just a sensitive surfer-dude in the making,
already planning his first trip out West
where everyone is all chillax.

The boys are 15 months apart.
They exhaust me. Good thing they love me.
Soon enough they will be cohorts plotting against me.
Sneaking out in the night.
Meeting girls, chugging beers.

And then I will be sad that it has all ended.
This time of onesies and diapered butts.
Buckets of water and a bottle cap.

Anyone who makes me get the mop out before 8 am is officially in TIME-OUT!

People are messy. Kids are messier. In the course of cleaning a child up, another large mess is made. Example: bath time - in my house - every night! It's inevitable that there will be spills and falls, sticky messes, muddy messes, bloody messes. The very thought of all the cleaning is exhausting. You clean the sink - 10 minutes later someone leaves a glob of toothpaste or a big, green boog smack dab in the middle of your cloroxed beauty. You mop the floor - a dog and three boys pounce through with muddy feet, only to turn around and head back outside. Why did you come inside in the FIRST PLACE! You do the dishes - the dishes get used, you DO THEM AGAIN! You do the laundry (you even FOLD the laundry) - the kids decide they want to play race car in the basket and dump the laundry, and then the dog throws up on it. It's terrible that I could go on and on forever. It's so damn tired it's just aggravating. And yet, it just needs to be done. It's just part of life. Life is messy. My life is messy. My boys are messy (4 of em including Dan the Man). Shit, I'm messy too. I try to be neat, but only really on days when I think anyone would care, or if I'm trying to rein in that chaotic feeling that comes on when I realize that this rhino ride I'm on isn't ending ANY TIME SOON. In fact, as the boys get older I'm afraid it will just get harder. And busier. Louder. And messier!

So I clean the floors and do the laundry. Get to the bathrooms when I can or if my mother is coming to visit. I do the dishes and scrub behind their ears - or at the very least I throw them in the shower for a hose down. We do what needs to be done because there is no one else to do it. No one else who keeps it all catalogued in their brain as the Things That Need To Get Done. I've mentioned this list before, if briefly - the running list.

All the generalizations aside, anyone who makes me get the mop out before 8 am is officially in time out, and has started the day on mommy's shit list. Max was that man this morning. Threw his full-to-the-brim cup of apple juice onto the kitchen floor SO INTENTIONALLY. And... I was not amused. Nor upset, really. I calmly picked him up and brought him to the dining room so I could put him on lock down in the booster seat. He screamed NO BUCKLE as I quietly struggled with him TO BUCKLE. Finally I wedge my foot between his legs and pushed down as hard as I had to in order for him to sit back and stay back while I clipped the buckle.

And then I walked away and I mopped. 7:28 am. Barf!

He screamed. I mopped. Not a stitch of anger in me at that moment. It was just so clear to me that there are some things, some messes, some problems that are just NOT Acceptable. And if YOU CHILDREN do them and cross that line, Mommy will NOT be upset, will NOT scream, will NOT shake her head and say things like, "I'm so disappointed in you." No, No, it will be worse. You will see me completely unaffected. No change in tone or decibel. No outward signs of dismay. Instead, I will punish you as you ought to be punished for the crime you have committed. And then I will gladly go about my business, not for one minute feeling a shred of guilt or sadness at your glum faces and drippy eyes. Sorry, Charlie. Momma don't play that game. Some rules CAN'T be broken. And forcing the mop into my hand at 7:28 am is one of those times Momma Ain't Got No Sympathy!

Oh Brother, How Art Thou? and other philosophical ramblings

It seems time to mention that we have a brother. Oh, and, yeah, he has three kids, too. What is this? you're asking yourself. Three siblings each with three children now. Weird. Is it, though? Seems like nice symmetry to me. And we really didn't plan on it. No sirree. 

Our brother is the middle child. I suspect he felt and/or tried to be invisible for much of his childhood. Sarah and I, well, we tended to have the attention. Me being the perfect, overachieving oldest, and Sarah being the rule-breaking, boundary-ignoring, creative genius youngest. There was our brother, smack dab in the middle, quiet, understated and probably embarrassed by one or both of us on any given day. The poor, poor kid. But he sure grew up to be one exceptional dude. I only wish he didn't live so damned FAR AWAY. But I digress. 

So once, about, oh, say three-and-a-half years ago (when I was the only one of the three of us with more than one child), he said, "Anyone who has more than two children is crazy." I remember laughing. Because this is just the sort of seemingly-judgmental, absolute thing that our brother says. He's a bit of a math genius. And I can see that the numbers of two parents and three kids do not add up neatly. But I swear, the moment those words left his mouth, he was just asking for those twins of his to start their lives in utero. Yup. The planner of the family had three kids in 20 months. Sarah and I each have two kids who are less than 18 months apart in age, so we know it's HARD. But this time, it's our brother who got himself right into the spotlight. Just where he never wanted to be. 

But here's the thing: Man oh man, is he a great dad. And the three kids have not really changed him that much. I mean, besides the obvious facts of being a dad, he, more than anyone else I know, has maintained his pre-parent lifestyle. And I don't know how in the WORLD he does it. (Well, I know it has a lot to do with his amazing wife.) He exercises regularly, often training for a crazy-ass bike riding competition through the desert, on which he subsequently medals or achieves some ridiculous feat (our sister-in-law runs marathons; people, she ran one WHILE PREGNANT WITH TWINS. Ooh, this will probably make some of you concerned. She didn't know she was pregnant at the time); goes away on weekends with his friends (and so does said wife); is finishing the basement of his house (for the kids); is always taking a class or studying for some career-enhancing test of some sort; and, when I talk to him (which is never often enough) he always sounds just like my little brother. Reasonable. Relaxed. Happy. 

Me, in comparison? OK. Exercise. Um, I used to be an athlete. Even worse, I used to be a COACH of a very competitive sport. Ugh. Remember the bread-dough middle? Well, I haven't gotten into the damn pool yet. I do go to a book group once a month, which I look forward to for approximately 27 days and 22 hours. These women have become intellectual companions, emotional sounding boards, good friends. But a weekend away? Uh, no. Not with the girls. J and I have gotten away from the kids a few times. Ooh, that sounds bad, "Gotten away from..." And forget about home improvement, I can't even keep on top of the daily maintenance. I have PILES upon piles of stuff--laundry, endless children's "art" projects; seasonal clothes to put away in the closet or finally organize in dressers; bills; broken toys that I keep saying I'll fix ... Every day I tell myself, often out loud (!), that I will confront one of these piles. Just one room, one area of one room. But it doesn't happen often enough. The piles multiply faster than I can conquer them. 

Now even this post feels like it's becoming like one of those piles--lost amongst the midst. Well, that's what life with three kids is. Even if you are more high-functioning than I am. I know that it's not fair to really compare my life with three with our brother's life with three. There's the twin aspect, of course. But, also, he's not the mother. And, Sarah, really, isn't that what we spend all of our mobile minutes talking about? Mothering three. MOTHERING.