Maintaining My Sanity, While Channeling My Inner Gallagher...

I want to start off this entry with a big thank you to those of you who took a moment and either commented, dropped me a line, or subscribed to my blog.  I've had a chance to read some of them and get back in touch with a few of you and your ideas will be put into place here in the future.  I still want more feedback though.  I realize that you can't please everyone 100% of the time, and that when all is said and done I'm going to do and write about what makes me happy.  But in that I want to share it with you guys and if I can tackle a topic you're interested in, answer a question, or not talk about my kids too much, I will make every effort to do so.
All that being said, let's knock this entry out..

I feel like a horrible parent...  Caleb has been home now for what seems to be about 27 days in a row from school.  Ok, so actually more like 6 but it feels a lot longer.  He's not one to be shut in for this period of time and my sanity isn't one to take him being shut in for this period of time.  We're in the middle of a ridiculous cold snap here in Michigan and wind chills have been running between 20-50 below zero.  And when it's that cold they automatically call school off.  And he hasn't had school since last Thursday...  I love Caleb, he's a ridiculously smart kid, he's amazingly artistic, and when he picks his moments he can flash a razor sharp wit.  But I feel bad..  I see all these parents on Facebook putting status updates like "Yay! another snow day with my kid!!!" , "So and so doesn't have school again today and I'm pumped!!!"   Meanwhile Father of the Year here answered the phone this morning at 5:45 am to an automated message telling me JPS is closed again today and immediately was like "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"   Maybe it's because I have all 4 boys here, maybe it's because he gets antsy being home this long, I dunno...  But I wake up to the baby yelling like a madman about 8:05 am and I instantly hear Caleb and the twins in the living room fighting.  This is a morning tradition by the way, Caleb I'm pretty sure to some degree is part robot as he NEVER sleeps..  He goes to bed about 8:30-9pm and has been up for the day by 2-3am...  Of course by late afternoon/early evening he morphs into this angry, overly tired, highly emotional monster that will emit screams so piercing dolphins will beach themselves off the coast of Texas, and I'm pretty sure I witnessed a neighbors dog's head explode during one of these outbursts...  He needs to get back to school for his sanity and mine a like.   But I keep telling myself Spring is around the corner and so is baseball.  But that's another entry in itself...

Alex is now 7 months old..  It doesn't seem possible for him to be that old already but he is.  The kid has the biggest cheeks I have ever seen on a baby..  He looks like a real life baby version of Charlie Brown..

Anyway, as he's moved past the 6 month stage we've moved him to baby food.  Not the good kind like Turkey and stuff.  Crap like Sweet Potatoes and Squash, Peas,  things I would never eat in a million years... But we force them on him whether he likes it or not and most times he does not.  Feeding him has become a lot like the scene from Happy Gilmore where he's trying to putt into the clown's mouth...  Sometimes it closes and you miss, other times it's open and you make it in, and other times you make it in, then it spits it back out at you..

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The difference being of course when he spits his food out at us we don't attack him with a putter..  The thought has crossed my mind,but then I realize he's just a baby, and I put the putter away..   It's not that bad feeding him outside of the fact you get a first hand feel for what it's like to be in the front row of a Gallagher show..  I feel like I should come to his feedings wearing a plastic sheet over me.  Whatever happened to Gallagher by the way??  Alex has a strange feeding habit in that he doesn't much care for green vegetables, but will eat orange one's with no problem whatsoever.  The problem with this is that you end up with a baby Oompa Loompa in the process.  They tend to develop an orange tint to their skin.  And he has right now an orange tint to his nose and cheeks...  I desperately want to get him a green wig.  But as we all know Oompa Loompa's are the very thing nightmares are made of..   I think one of my favorite things about feeding him is finding foods he doesn't like..  You haven't seen true funny until you watch a baby dry heave after tasting something they didn't like...  It's comedy gold.   When it stops being fun is when he starts crying.  At first it wasn't bad, when he'd open his mouth to cry you'd jam a spoonful of food in and he'd it eat.  But he has mastered the art of both laughing and crying with his mouth closed which I have to tell you, sucks...  He on the other hand thinks it's hilarious to see us get worked up because he won't eat..   The more I think about it, the more I realize he truly is the puppet master here...  If he doesn't feel like eating he clams up, we see this and go into some odd ball slap stick comedy routine filled with making faces only an overbearing stage mom could appreciate, and noises that usually would indicate some form of mental breakdown...   All the while, he sits there smirking and laughing with his mouth closed...  He's doing it on purpose I'm pretty sure...  We do get our moments though...  He'll be powering through some sweet potatoes and will finish them and we'll hit him with another vegetable like peas, or maybe a fruit like peaches and the look is priceless...  It's like you flipped his little world upside down momentarily.  It's a cross between bewilderment and the very definition of confusion.  It's amazing.  Don't judge me, it's the little things that help us keep it together as parents..  There are 4 of them and 2 of us.. We're out numbered and we know it..  We just hope they never realize that or it's over....

I'll close out this blog with another food related story I briefly touched on in my last blog..  This one involves the twins Josh and Jonah.   We went to dinner with my parents.  It was them, Jill, myself, Caleb, Josh, Jonah, my sister and her two kids.  We had just spent a hellish afternoon trying to do family pictures.  Which was a lot like trying to wrangle cats.  We get done and agree to go the Spartan Hall of Fame Cafe in Lansing.  We get there, get our table, and wait forever for a waitress to come acknowledge us.  And what happens when you ask little kids (I think they were either 1 or 2) to sit for an extended period of time?  They don't...  So the waitress comes, takes the order, and leaves and it's another extended period of time because they're busy.  The boys being boys are done.  So they start fussing and fidgeting.  In an attempt to quiet them I hand them spoons to play with.. The mindset what "oh look, shiny.."   Well, that worked for about 5 minutes until it turned into light drumming on the table, then on their plates.  Mind you, we were isolated from most of the room.  There was a couple about 50-60 feet away.  And nobody seemed to mind the boys impromptu drum solos...  That is until the waitress returned to our table with appetizers.  She leans in and says to us "the couple over there complained that your boys are being too loud."  I of course immediately look over at their table and the lady is looking at us, see's me look at her and looks down at her food.  I never got their names, so we'll call them The Von Yuppington's.  They were very yuppyish...  Ok..  there's one of two ways I could have handled this...   1. The high road, quiet the kids down, do my best to keep them quiet, quickly get through the meal and leave.  or 2. Stare at them a lot, shake my head at them whenever they look and make it known we know it was them who whined to the waitress...  I took option 2... I'm not proud of this.  But come on..  Our kids weren't hurting anyone..  So I immediately stare at their table until they look again and I shake my head..  She says something to her husband who turns and looks and I look at him too.  He turns back around and continues with his fruity drink..  So we've established I'm unhappy and know the Von Yuppington's are the one's who did it.   If I had been thinking clearly at this point I would've asked the waitress what the lady was drinking and sent her a drink with a note that says "hopefully this will loosen you up enough for the stick to fall out of your butt.."  But I didn't think of that until we were leaving :(
Anyway, so we kinda kept the boys in line for dinner, we weren't breaking our backs trying, just shushing them half halfheartedly.  We finish up and get ready to leave, I give the boys spoons and let them drum as we're getting coats on and I may or may not have drummed a little while looking at their table..  Again, childish?  Yes...  But, you only live once right?  And who are they to complain when there were other kids in the place being every bit as loud?  It was ridiculous and I stooped to their level instead of being the bigger person.  But sometimes it's more fun that way.

Anyway.  Keep the comments, suggestions, subscriptions coming in!!  Take full advantage of all the options on the right hand side.  My posts will be about more than just my kids I promise, just lately they've given me a lot of material to work with..  I'll write about whatever gives me material to use.

Until next time,

Be Well.....