Where's my backup!

I'm just about ready to go into hiding until Friday evening when my husband should be back in town. On the typical day my boys drive me a little nuts. Okay each day takes me one step closer to a mental health vacation. But usually by the next morning I've bounced back and am ready to parent again. Unfortunately without someone to play good cop to my bad cop, I really don't bounce back and things are going down hill.....

Today we were off to the gym for Grant's penultimate swimming lesson. Heath had latched on to a magna-doodle on the way out of the house and was "COLR"ing in the car. Great. Fine. The more distracted the kids are the easier it is for me to drive. When we got to the gym, I told Heath he'd need to put away the magna-doodle before he could go into childcare and play with his friends. The full impact of this statement didn't register with him until I wrestled the toy away and shoved it into the backpack. Heath proceeded to scream, cry and basically throw a full blown fit over having to put up his magna-doodle. As I ushered him through the gate into the play area, he began to holler out "MOMMA!" Seriously why does this child want to be comforted by the woman who just caused him to throw this fit?!?! I just don't get it. I calmly told Heath "You don't really want me. You want your toy back. We'll see you after swim lessons."

Grant and I head out to the pool deck to wait for his class to start. Over the splashes from the swim team doing laps and the seniors doing aqua-aerobics, I hear my name being paged. Evidently in the 10 to 15 minutes since we'd left Heath in childcare, he'd continued to cry inconsolably and would not let any of the teachers near him. Luckily a couple of other moms arrive with kids in tow for swim lessons, so I can leave Grant with them to wait for class to begin.

Back in childcare Heath isn't really crying anymore, he's just zoned out staring at a lunch box sitting on the check-in counter. It takes him a full minute to even realize that I've returned and am standing next to the lunch box. As I pick him up and he quietly hiccups on my shoulder, I realize that leaving him in childcare is just not going to work today. Instead I end up supervising him on the pool deck and hoping that I can convince him that he's not going swimming today.

I'm not sure that I did the right thing... I think I just did the only thing I could be taking him out of childcare. At least I didn't give him back the magna-doodle. But I do wonder if I and the girls in childcare taught him just how long he has to cry to be able to manipulate the situation to his advantage.

It's not easy being the bad cop when there's no backup in sight!

The end of the last moth

Well, I've been amazed at how long our moths have lived even with the intervention of our cats. We still had one moth hanging around for no apparent reason. Each day I check to see if he's still with us since I feel bad about just throwing the box out, moth and all. Though Leon and Mathilda, our cats, have tried to assist him on to his next life several times since they put his brother and sisters out of their misery. Our last moth was not cooperating with their help. Instead he stays firmly camped out in his hide out... a toilet paper tube.

This morning I did my usual moth check and was quite surprised to see what looked like an ant invasion. You see, I've heard horror stories from other moms this spring about ants and spiders attacking their silkworms, so I thought maybe the ants that patrol our house looking for anything interesting to eat had finally found the moth. After looking again at the infestation, I realized that the next generation of silkworms was hatching. Aw crap! These tiny creatures, who were maybe an eighth of an inch long, were never supposed to be born or should I say hatched. I'd stored away a dozen or so of their siblings still safe in their eggs in my refrigerator for next spring when I'm feeling up to dealing with the life cycle experiment again. Yep, next to the ketchup and last night leftovers is a little ziploc bag with a dozen silkworm eggs. I've already warned my mom that on her next visit to our house if she feels the urge to clean out my fridge not to touch the silkworm eggs.

So what did I do with the 100 or so new born silkworms?!? I quickly snatched up the box, told Grant that sadly the moth had died sometime last night then took the box, moth, silkworms and all outside and threw them in the trash. Did I ever check to see if the moth was really dead? No... the newly hatched silkworms freaked me out too much for me to ever check. Do I feel bad about killing all those silkworms? Yeah, but I'm not up to rearing a really big batch of them right now. Next time I'll be more careful and not assume that our silkworms will actually stick to the documented schedule. I'll get all the eggs out as soon as possible, so I don't have to face another huge silkworm invasion. And honestly, I'll probably encourage my cats on their missions of mercy once we have old and infirmed moths to deal with.

Now you know to never bring your silkworms or moths to our house. You just don't know what we'll do with them!

Customer Service is NOT dead!

Today didn't turn out at all like I had hoped it would but there were some nice surprises in store. Instead of the boys and I hanging out at the pool and having a sack lunch at the gym, the cool, overcast morning forced me to change my plans. After Grant's swim lessons, we did a little shopping at Target. Then I treated the boys to lunch at McDonald's. I swear Grant loves their crappy happy meals for more than just the crappy toys. Heath just loves anywhere that serves french fries. As we stand in line and order our food, I'm trying to keep Heath under control. At 2, the boy has no concept of how to stand in line or even just stay close to Mommy instead he wants to do everything on his terms not mine. UGH! I finally end up picking him up to keep some unsuspecting person from trampling him while we wait for our food. As the manager finishes adding the coveted french fries to our tray, he looks at me and my dynamic duo and then turns to one of his employees and says, "Arturo, please help this lady to her table." I was floored! Customer Service at McD!! I'm lovin' it! (I sorry I just couldn't resist that one.) And God bless Arturo for so nicely helping me get lunch to our table.

Oh by the way, Grant's swimming lessons are going great. He's willingly putting his face in the water and he doesn't even want his goggles. Today he volunteered to be the first kid to float on his stomach. Maybe this time he'll actually make it out of the Preschool 1 class. Hey, we've got to dream.

Actually Doonesbury

I have to admit that I don't read Doonesbury all that regularly anymore. For some reason today's strip caught my eye and I'm glad it did. See actually is a very big word in our house. I never realized quite how often Glayde used it until Grant started mimicking him and using actually in his running commentary.
It's not uncommon in our house to hear Grant announce....

Actually I want peanut butter and jelly for lunch.
Actually Darth Vader is Luke's father.
Mommy, actually I paused off my show.

Who knew a 4 year old would be that concerned about convincing me that I had the latest inside information. I'd actually prefer a little peace and quiet instead.

Assisted Suicide?

Well I feel like I've been a part of a death bed vigil. You see silkworm moths are not supposed to live all that long. Their biological imperative is to mate and lay eggs for the next generation. Most sources seem to say that adult moths will live 5-7 days. Males usually die within a day or two of mating. So why is it that I had a 13 day old moth?!? It's a morbid ritual to go check on the moths each morning to see if any of them have died. None of them had much energy except for on intrepid male who would climb up the side of the box. If I gently blew on them, they would flap their wings a few times. It can't be an exciting existence. What are they waiting around for anyway?!?

That's where the Dr. Kevorkians in our house decided to step in. When I went to do my moth check this morning I found the box oddly empty and the remaining toilet paper tube moved from where I remembered it being yesterday. A lone moth was huddled in the tube not moving much but still hanging in there. I scanned the dining room table and thought it would be really odd if 5 of them decided to make a break for it at the same time and where would they go?!? I eventually found some half eaten moth remnants on the floor. I guess our cats finally took an interest in the moths and decided that they would make a tasty treat.

I had to explain this all to Grant when he got up this morning. He was "mad at Leon and Mathilda" but he understood that they were "making sure that there weren't too many moths". We've been trying to explain animal predators and the food chain to Grant and how just because an owl eats a mouse or bunny it doesn't make the owl bad. He's doing an important job. It's still pretty funny to hear it all spewed back at you about a pair of inside only cats and some insects that are too domesticated for their own good.

Summer has started

Well, I'm surviving the summer stress so far. It's not easy having a sassy 4 year old at home all day. I've tried to come up with some small projects for Grant to work on his own. Yesterday he finished creating a countdown chain for his birthday. It's just strips of paper stapled into links like those old fashioned Christmas decorations. There's one link for each day until his birthday (35 days in case you're wondering). Each day Grant gets to remove a link. I decided he needed to do this so that maybe he would believe that his birthday isn't two days away like he kept announcing.

He's also amazing good at creating projects for himself. Yesterday he created his own book "to help him learn to read". It was three sheets of paper stapled together with drawings of robots and not a letter in sight. But it did keep Grant occupied for a while and I didn't have to be involved until he wanted to read the book to me.

To keep us all entertained, we've been to the park for Heath's playgroup. We've been to the gym where there's child care available! We've made the weekly Target run and even stopped at the bookstore to find a new dinosaur book. We've played and eaten lunch outside. There has been lots of movies and shows. If it wasn't for TiVo, I don't think I would ever be able to shower in my own home. And I guess this has to fall in the entertainment category too... Heath threw a colossal fit at dinner last because he didn't want to eat mac-n-cheese (the very same kind that he happily ate at Keisha's house last week)!

Hmm... what will we do for the rest of the week?!?? At least next week Grant has swim lessons. I know the lessons are only 30 minutes long but when you add in the drive time and showering time after class, swim lessons can really suck up a morning.

Grant Graduated!

Saturday was Grant's preschool graduation and oddly enough I was dry eyed through the entire ceremony. He was cute in his little cap and gown though. Yes, it was a big moment to realize that my first child is officially done with preschool but mostly I'm dreading a summer without too many structured activities. You see Grant is not enrolled in summer school and Heath doesn't start preschool until the fall. I counted today... that's 88 days of finding things to entertain my boys with while not going batty myself. Wish me luck this summer!

Moth Matchmaking

It's been a week since our first moth emerged and I have to say that these creatures have strange lives. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to when they'll emerge from their cocoons. You see, I wrote down when most of our silkworms began to build their cocoons and their not coming out in the same order that they went in. My scientific mind is itching to rear another batch of silkworms just to take data on them and I wasn't even I biology major.

Now that 5 of our 6 moths have emerged and we finally have some males as well as females, the ever exciting mating rituals have begun. Watching this all makes me very happy that I'm not a moth! Because no matter what you think about your sex life, it has to be better than a moth's. Every morning I check our box for new arrivals and yesterday I was excited to see what looked like our first male moth. I went to make the boys some breakfast and in under five minutes, the male had located a female and was trying to hook up with her. Somewhere around 8 hours later I noticed the female trying to make a break for it. I could easily imagine her saying... "Hey, seriously, get off of ME!" But the male was doggedly trying to continue on with his tantric methods.

This morning during our breakfast rush, I noticed that sure enough the same two moths were still going at it. Seriously 24 hours of sex is way too much for me even if I didn't have to look at the guy. Also this morning there was a new arrival, our second male, whose wings were still drying even as he tried to figure out where there was a female for him to hook up with. With two available females I figured things would work out fine for him but when I checked in later I noticed a new pairing. I would swear that our original tantric male had claimed his second partner while the newcomer frantically fluttered his wings around near the couple.

I feel like a combination moth matchmaker and sex therapist as I try to get the available male to partner up with the original female, who Glayde affectionately calls "the dried up old hag". They don't seem too taken with each other, so I think it's a no go on that relationship. Maybe the last male will get lucky and our final moth will be a female. That's assuming he can beat his brother to her.

The force is strong with this one

I finally gave in and let Grant watch Star Wars (Episode 4: A New Hope) since I saw it when I was about his age. He's obsessed with the movie now and his obsession has probably reached about the level of my childhood obsession with Star Wars. Every stick has become a light saber. The noises I'm hearing suggest that R2 is accompanying Grant everywhere he goes. Each night before falling asleep, Grant re-enacts scenes from the movies. It seems to be his version of counting sheep. And the most frequent announcement in our house is "I WANT TO BE A JEDI KNIGHT!"

But I have to wonder if I understood quite so little of the movies the first time I saw them. Grant continues to call C-3PO "that gold guy" even though I continually correct him. Then while watching the Empire Strikes Back and Luke is standing on one hand lifting various things around Yoda's camp...

Grant: Dad, how is Luke doing that?!? It's magic!
Dad: No, he's using the force.
Grant: What's the force?
Dad: Well... that's what they call magic in this movie.

There's a moth in our house!

And I was really excited when I noticed her! LOL We've been raising silkworms and the first moth has emerged from her cocoon. How do I know that she's a female? Well, she's already laid some eggs and she's missing the feathery antennae that the males have. Grant's really excited to see the first moth. Obviously watching six cocoons sitting around in toilet paper tubes for two weeks is not high entertainment even for preschoolers.