I’ve been absent the last few weeks, determined to neglect my laptop during my time off work over the holidays. By now, there are too many stories to rehash, so by way of a desire to recap, here are a handful of highlights:
- 1. As testament to the contagious enthusiasm of his vocal stylings, A sang “I am a Pizza” so many times over his McDonald’s lunch that a table of 3 adult men good-naturedly joined in on the song as we exited.
- 2. I celebrated my 1,000th Peloton ride. It’s arbitrary in the scheme of things, but was fun to mark the occasion with a few people
crazysupportive enough to set their alarms on a Saturday morning to do a 75 minute endurance live ride. - 3. J, O, and I burnt the entirety of our arcade card balances on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle game one afternoon. It was a total nail-biter at the end with HP and credits running low, but we defeated all the bosses, triumphed over Shredder himself, and then spent our tickets on Pop Rocks and Fun Dip. I don’t normally buy myself in when we play, but I am so glad I was part of this epic victory. On the other hand, J required my help buckling his seat in the car afterwards as he was despondent — convinced that his arm was broken from all the button smashing.
- 4. A bowled his first strike! That same game, O’s slow rolling finally caught up with him and we had to ask for help when his ball managed to stall entirely two thirds down the lane. Fortunately neither boy is terribly invested in competition yet, so they both remained sportsmanly.
- 5. Our neighbors invited J and me over for a midday play date (O invited himself along) with a few other friends. The host joked that she pumps “casino air” into the basement so the boys can remain down there for hours. While they played, one of the moms remarked that between us 4, we have fourteen boys. Naturally, the couple of hours trading stories are intensely reassuring to my sense of whether my home’s state of “ambient chaos” is normal.
- 6. I sent the ping below to Dave when we were (again) spending the better part of an afternoon at the library. What can I say? I’m a woman of simple taste.
- 7. Our 2023 New Year celebration consisted of 3 memorable (& largely “on brand”) moments:
7a. We attended a NYE bash at the library, counting down to noon with crafts, music, and dancing. Visiting my elderly neighbor that evening, she had the local news playing in the background and I spotted my sons’ TV debuts.
7b. We “counted down” to what ended up being 6:53pm ET with a recording of the Sydney fireworks. We cheers’d with Propel, sparking juice, water, and champagne. Our “please be careful not to spill!” warning was effective for precisely the amount of time it took for O to excitedly take his cup, stand up off the couch, and slosh the cider over onto the fabric.
7c. A quiet moment of reflection and gratitude with Dave after the boys were asleep.
Happy new year. May 2023 bring more of what lights you up, particularly if it involves springing for an arcade card for yourself.
Closing out 2022 roasting marshmallows in matching jammies. Pretty sure this is what the kids today call “wildin’.” 
Splitting a pitcher of root beer at the bowling alley. Cheers! 
Low on design standards, but high on utilization of resources (which is to say, the boys ate all of the decor over the course of the following 48 hours) 
Wisdom a la the nearby ice cream shop (yes, we do post-dinner ice cream even in December). 
14 boys between us, and a pact to invite each other out to “girly” events if we ever get a craving. 
Not only is this a legitimate conversation, but the AI suggested responses are on point. 
Something for everyone on New Year’s Eve. 
Cowabunga, dude. 
My sweet boy and his Tugboat Fuzzy Dumptruck.
Related: more family Ninja Turtling // ride #600: 18 months and 1 baby ago.
Every other Friday, our home is visited by a magical person.
She is kind.
She brings her own vacuum.
She is non-judgmental, and even when I try to apologize for the state of [insert messiest room du jour here], she just smiles, “you have 4 boys!”
She is Ms. Laurie. She cleans our house, and we appreciate her work enormously for the 5 hours before the boys return home and effectively negate her efforts.
But before every other Friday, there is every other Thursday, when we get serious with the boys about their (theoretically nightly) pickup duties. Tonight was no exception.
How Sisyphean is this task, you wonder? Well, I’ll show you.
First, there is this: our eldest two — our supposedly most independent and helpful two — spontaneously hanging upside-down from the couch, only half dressed but of course wearing superhero masks, instead of picking up the (disastrous) living room as instructed 15 minutes prior.
Next, one of many handfuls of tchotchkes I retrieved from their bedrooms. The motivation [read: threat] is often “if you don’t pick it up, Mom gets to throw it away,” and the items like these — trinkets from Boo baskets, or party favors, or wherever else… are often abandoned and therefore go the way of Friday’s garbage pickup.
Finally, this. Just when you think the rooms are “good enough,” and you divert your attention to getting boys in pajamas or putting the baby down… a certain 3-year-old rips open a brand new bag of cereal and successfully uses it as a construction “dig site.”
But I’m telling you, those 5 truly clean hours on every other Friday… magic.
Related: a brilliant hack to *keep* your bathrooms clean for company // plus Sunday “get stuff done” day.
I snapped this image of J Sunday morning as he got ready to attend a friend’s birthday party. He had dressed himself to his taste and was combing his hair into a bona fide style.
Shortly after I took this, he groaned in exasperation. He couldn’t get his hair to cooperate in achieving his vision. I intervened, fixed his comically askew part, and the style took care of itself.
Not long ago, he couldn’t see over the counter to the mirror at all. And at some point, perhaps in the not too distant future, checking his reflection will become an important part of his daily routine.
I am watching my son seemingly right in the in-between. He has a preferred hairstyle, but wouldn’t have taken the time to comb his hair at all had I not suggested it as a method to mask how delinquent I have been giving him a trim. He dresses himself in the morning and has favorite pants or sweaters he will always choose if they are clean, but those favorites are almost exclusively based on softness of the fabric. He has lost his front teeth and wears that charming gap so well, but I know when his permanent teeth come in, their feature alone will make him appear significantly older. He has this lovely little social life and goes from party to party on the weekends, but the parties are mock science labs, or Lego-themed, or take place at arcades where he can only just barely reach the pedal of the race car games.
What a sweet phase, this in-between.
Related: a glimpse into the fashion sense of my sons // Going on seven.
A conversation I had at least a dozen times while trick-or-treating:
Neighborhood kid: what are you dressed up as, Ms. Kel?
Me: April O’Neil!
Neighborhood kid: …ohh… is that… is that the… girl?
Me: yes. Yes, I’m the token girl. This is my life.
Related: how *should* neighborhood kids refer to adults? // our favorite Halloween decor is still a hit even if J insists our house is “embarrassed” by the more committed neighbors in our circle…
THE “WHATCHA BEEN UP TO?” EDITION
It’s been a few weeks since my last post, so by way of explanation, I offer my readership (all 3 of you) a glimpse into quotes from the recent past.
*****
Me: O, stop hitting your brother with your Thor hammer.
*****
O, observing his feet stacked on top of each other as we read before bed: this foot is kind of like a volcano. And this one is like lava.
*****
Dave, hastily removing the faux nunchaku and tossing them in the closet: no weapons unless you can use them responsibly, boys.
*****
O: I love frosting; it’s like a blanket. Except you don’t go through it.
*****
Me: so let me get this straight. Your dad made you a delicious filet mignon and you consumed it in order to… qualify for a post-dinner hot dog?
J: …yeah.
*****
Me: A, put that down! Your dump truck is NOT a weapon.
*****
Otherwise spending no less than thirty-five minutes at daycare pickup as I had already snagged J & O from school first and therefore brought them in to pick up the little bros. Literally every. single. boy. had to have a bowel movement during the pickup process, and one of them clogged the toilet with his over-zealous toilet paper tendencies. But fear not: the daycare director, upon realizing I was still there 30+ minutes after I originally said my hellos in the lobby, assured me it was not a big deal to clog the toilet. After all, she said, when A did it just last week and flooded the hallway, they had cleaned it up no problem, so this clogging solved with a simple plunge was truly no biggie.
*****
Related: more O similes // A on a roadtrip.
when you turn seven
you can bike to your friend’s house
and fly your first plane. (??)
Few things feel more comfortable, indulgent, and relaxing than closing out a chilly fall day by snuggling into bed and reading a book. Well, maybe “relaxing” isn’t quite accurate when you are joined by your introspective and inquisitive 7 year old who finds a way to turn even a fantastical Roald Dahl book into a deep and existential pop quiz. In order, conducted rapid-fire, and – I assure you – receiving pretty sub-par responses from his mother as her cognitive speed leaves a lot to be desired by 8pm on a school night:
- “Is Roald Dahl still alive?”
- “How old was he when he died?”
- “Do you think he’s in heaven?”
- “What *is* heaven?”
- “Okay. What’s a soul?”
- “Hm… so where does the soul live in my body?”
- (here’s where you can tell my answers were no longer satisfactory to him): “Can you ask Google?”
Maybe tomorrow I’ll suggest I just sing lullabies instead.
Awhile back, I read this guest post on CupofJo.com: 21 Complete Subjective Rules for Raising Teenage Boys. It’s funny and sweet, but strangely enough, one of the tips that I ended up finding most salient is the one I quoted in my title:
Pick your battles. Personal style is a pretty low-stakes form of self-actualization; if the way they wear their hair or jeans (hello, bum crack!) is not your very favorite, complain about it to a friend.
– Catherine Newman
My boys are young and easy-going as clothes go, happy to throw on whatever is on top of their clean clothes stacks in their drawers, and generally acquiescing to my suggestions for length of pants or shirt sleeves per the changing temperatures during Michigan’s fall.
But today, I had to photo-document. Not only did J & O dress themselves in these outfits, but they were, in fact, pleased enough with their selections that they made a point to highlight them to me over breakfast.
Featured on J: Paw Patrol sweatpants, an under tee, Mickey sweatshirt, and a pizza print button-down collared shirt.
Featured on O: a Star Wars tee, his favorite pineapple-wearing-sunglasses button-down shirt, and his speedy light-up shoes.
Personal style. It begins.
