Seven Sidekicks
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php
Rivals
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081120-065320
James and John have always been competitive with each other, but James has been on a blitzkrieg lately to get John into trouble whenever possible.
Yesterday D. asked how John had done in school, and Ann, his classmate said "perfect," which swung jealous James into a tizzy.
"No he wasn't perfect, James hyperventilated, "I saw him--punch someone on the playground!"
Brother Mickey, lazily chewing on a cheese stick, chimed in. "Yeah, that was me."
"Oh" said Mom"..."Did you do something to provoke him?"
"Yeah," said Mickey, waving his cheese stick, as if the answer were stunningly obvious.
]]>Kid of the Week
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081118-210211
At the urging of one of D's friends, a loyal sevensidekicks reader eager to learn more about each of our kids individually, I've named the tradition "Kid of the Week." (This one's for you, Carrie).
Four Mondays ago, as the Colts prepared to battle the Titans on Monday Night Football, and prompted by feelings of neglectful parenting--several cavities at the dentist, a grandparent concerned about reading progress, etc.-- I took D. up on an insanely kind offer to let me leave the house with one kid and share dessert somewhere (sugarless tofu pudding, of course). A rare opportunity (outside ER visits) for one on one time.
So the deal has become this. I take out each school age kid in succession, from oldest to youngest (Mark and Daisy will have to wait a few years). Kid-of-the-week and I order a sundae the size of my head, and between spark-shooting spoon jousts, we write notes back and forth to one another in a tiny notebook, called _____'s Notebook (each kid has one).
Even though I might be training my children into the insidious habit of passing notes in class, the idea actually came from Ann's teacher, who calls these notebooks "correspondence journals." They're a great way of practicing reading and writing with humor and spontaneity. We even break the rules and draw from time to time.
Here's a sample of a written conversation between me and John, age 6.
John: Dad, can we get an ice cream maker?
Dad: No way. Too expensive.
J: What is this word?
D: "Expensive," I say out loud. "It costs lots of money," I write.
J: Why?
D: Because all I'll do is make ice cream and eat ice cream.
J: That cost money?.
D: Yes, because we will have to buy new doors for me to fit into the house. New doors are expensive.
J: "Expensive," John says out loud.
D: Yes.
J: It is ok. You can live outside. Be happy.
Promptly after this exchange, our waitress brought us a disgustingly large sundae.
]]>Eye of the Storm
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081112-190104
Blood filled my temples as a mass of undifferentiated noise barreled toward me from the other room. I closed my eyes, and began counting heartbeats, while little feet began to dance around me as if I were the fallen Lord of the Flies pig. The noise did not cease but grew louder, but instead of fighting it, for whatever reason, I chose to fall into it. I opened my eyes and realized, in a moment of rare detachment, that the chaos of my children was really just a collection of distinct and logical parts, and didn't always, as I assumed, stem from onerous sibling rivalry or their intense desire to give me a heart attack.
Nate, Mark and Mick courteously took turns climbing on top of the coffee table, then leaping to the couch, and somersaulting to the floor. Shrieks of delight, not aggression or pain, while John and James chatted excitedly over James' deft computer skills. Sailor cajoled baby Daisy as she tested her balance over the pillow strewn floor (and my belly). It turns out that Daisy was the only one making noise for the sheer hell of it, even though she's always the last to get blamed for the din. Who would of thought? A room filled with playful, even constructive sounds!
This everyday moment suddenly struck me as one in which alien dissectors of the human race, or people without children, might be fascinated. It reminded me of an essay I read recently in the Sun Literary Magazine about a wanna-be dad who practices parenting by au pairing for friends during a wedding road trip and finds himself lovingly drawn into their messy clockwork. Definitely worth a read, both for aspiring parents and parents who feel so entrenched that they've forgotten why they had kids in the first place.
In the winter months new routines start for keeping skin soft and children smelling their finest. We are eczema prone around here, bio and adopted, so I learned early, by trial and error, how to best keep skin healthy in these cold months. Baths for little ones with baking soda and baby oil. Pat dry and rub Eucerin cream into their skin. Dress in soft 100% cotton layer with a fleece outer layer, eg. tights, onesie, fleece pants and sweatshirt. I love Hanna Andersson Swedish Moccasins to keep feet warm and maintain traction on wood floors. With cozy layers and conditioned skin we keep scaly dermis at bay.
I keep the heat down in the house, so less drying out. Also, hydration is key. Our kids drink tea! Today, Nate and Mark and Daisy had peppermint tea with honey and whole milk after lunch. P.S. Only try honey after 12 months to avoid a possible early allergy.
If you’re having any trouble with skin let me know. I’ve probably dealt with it, and I may be able to help.
Sheff has noticed that kids have an inborn drive to “moisten” themselves. Check out his "Moist" entry below. ]]>Moist
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081110-161818
Each one of my biological kids has gone through a phase of needing to lubricate everything in sight. Last summer, my then two year old was obsessed with dabbing his cheeks, head and chest with petroleum products.
The usual suspects.
At one point, I even caught him lubing up the barbeque with an entire bottle of 50 SPF sunscreen. In his defense, I’ve never seen a more ageless barbeque.
A moist read!
Just last week, my current two year old anointed the pages of five library books with diaper rash cream--possibly in an attempt to make them glide more smoothly through the return slot.
Moist!
If I had a nickel for every time I’ve mistaken our playroom for Exxon Valdez, I’d be able to feed every parking meter in town--stuffed animals with nary an open pore, action figures glistening like the front covers of muscle magazines, the television set oozing like a giant insect eye. And when toddlers lube hardwood floors, it’s hard to catch the little buggers because their low centers of gravity give them alarming balance in slippery conditions. Then, when you finally do catch them, they’re like little Heismans with their ability to slide out of a tackle.
Mega moist!
Late two, early three seems to be the prime age for this moistening phenomenon, and it may coincide with potty training. D. has read that around this age, kids become aware of the unpleasantness of replacing absorbent diapers with “cargo shorts” (not the kind with the pockets), and that they’ll act out by messing up their environments as a way commanding our attention to clean them. Smearing their own you-know-what is the ultimate manifestation of this mess-making drive (we’ve all been there), but anything that smears seems to be a good proxy.
Sticky moist!
My own theory is that kids this age, having grown more verbal and aware that they’re stuck in the world of humans with no possibility of return to the womb, find themselves in the throes of a sort of “vernix withdrawal.” Maybe, at this age, we parents start paying a little less attention to them when they get out of the bath. We’re a little more sparing with the baby oil, a little more austere with the powder, and they start to feel vulnerable, like salted slugs.
Cleansed moist!
There are several advantages of the “moistening” stage. It’s one of the few times, for example, when I don’t worry about kids’ getting heads stuck in bannisters at friends’ houses. It can be off-putting to walk into a party with a warm plate of ham and a reciprocating saw.
Stylish moist!
Also, it’s handy to have little grease fiends around when you’re trying to get your bike up and running after a long winter and you’re chain’s a little stiff.
Short-lived moist!
If you’re on a family outing and you see a stranger’s child itching and scratching from a bad case of eczema, a good natured high-five between your little lube-lord and the afflicted may be just what the doctor ordered. It takes a village!
With a little planning, creativity, and determination, this unctious period can go pretty smoothly. Just make sure to keep your slickened away from delicate fabrics and open flames, and when you’re crossing the street, grip sleeves, not hands.
Mini moist.
Drive-by moistening. ]]>By the Truckload
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081109-205051
In the span of five years, we adopted three from Russia in two trips. On the heels of each trip we had a bio baby, making our number five, four boys and one oh so lonely girl. We figured we’d take a shot at giving sister a sister, and of course, we had another brother.
So we tried again, and voila, baby girl was born, tiny and wispy as a dandelion seed.
Explore the Seven Under Seven section of this blog for a week in our life, or for a condensed downloadable version, check out the Spring '08 issue of the Williams College Alumni Review..
April 20, '08
]]>Annie's Overnight
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081109-161731
SailorAnn (6), by her own choosing, now goes by "Annie." We thought about calling her Annie in the first place but wanted to dodge the stigma of "Little Orphan Annie" that might be associated with her first years. So why did she decide on the name change (other than the fact that it seems a rite of passage in this family)? She loves "Little Orphan Annie." Go figure.
Here's a passage of a letter from my dad describing Annie's first overnight, a nice view into her personality, and his.
My wife and I had a daughter named “Daisy” but she only lived two days. It was a tragedy that she left us so soon, but she’s another story. Years later my son, Sheff, adopted a little girl, Sai-Sai, now “Annie”, from Russia. And a few years later he and his wife, Deirdre, had another daughter called “Daisy.” They named her after Sheff’s sister. It was very poignant. She’s a much-welcomed addition to the core and expanded family.
The point is that I never raised a daughter. Two fine sons but not a little girl. So when it became Annie’s turn for a sleepover with her grandfather, me, I was a bit at sixes and sevens.
I picked up Annie at the appointed time. Her mother whisked her out, well prepared, spit-spot. Apparently overnights with grandfather are popular and she didn’t want six other kids pitching fits. I asked her what she wanted for dinner. She said “cheeseburger.” I asked if she knew where one was close by. She said take a right. We got to Snelling Ave. and she said take a left. I was in the left lane, Then she pointed to the right where the MacDonald’s was. I pointed out, very, very patiently, honest to God, that that was right and not left. She smiled. We were at a stop light in the far left lane. I learned long ago in Thailand that if you actually smile and talk to other motorists, you could do almost anything. So I motored down Annie’s window and asked the lady on my right if I could cross over in front of her. It’s a busy intersection so this was brazen. She shrugged in a “whatever” way. And she actually held at green as we committed a gross moving violation to get to MacDonald’s.
At the car she said her grandmother lived down the street we were on. She knew. And it was several miles down. But she knew. I asked if she’d like to visit her newish sister, Daisy and a brother, Mickey, at her grandmother’s house. She smiled. Yes. My son and his wife had farmed all the children out to four different host houses. They were celebrating their wedding anniversary, somewhat delayed because of projectile hurling flu on the actual day, September 29th. We dropped in on Nor and had a nice visit. Then on to Minneapolis.
We got to the house and she checked out everything like a fairly laid-back drill sergeant. I’d fixed up her bed and bedroom so it would be welcoming. I put up a picture of her, of her Dad, my son, and her whole family on a low bureau in her room to remind her we were kin. Somehow that was smart of me. After she left I found she’d carefully placed a little paper pumpkin next to each picture except the one of herself. I found other little things in her tiny wake. Little things moved around a little in her wake. Things that never moved when it was just me. It was quietly wonderful.
Right off I made a fire and we fired up the oven for the cookies. Nothing from scratch. Nothing left to chance. She saw the brand new games on the coffee table and wanted to get right to it. I’d read the instructions before she came but was still a little hazy on the rules. Everyone knows CANDYLAND. It’s been around about 60 years. I’d never heard of it. She taught me. She taught me this and four card games. She’s a good teacher. She’s six.
Breakfast the next morning...
She wanted French toast. So that’s what we had. French toast and bacon. She ate most of it and I automatically ate her leftovers when she was done. A sort of phantom limb quality of parents, or former parents, of little ones. You eat what they don’t. There are hedge fund managers in New York starving, you know. You don’t waste food.
Grandpa Pocky, Minneapolis
]]>Alumna D.
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081108-210407
For a recent profile of Deirdre, go to November issue of CSB Alumnae and Friends from the College of St. Benedict.]]>If You Give a Tot Iced Coffee
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081106-204822
If you give a tot iced coffee,
She’ll want a second sip.
You’ll give her one and, She’ll probably enjoy it.
When you refuse to give her a third, She’ll get bossy,
Then she’ll try to pull off your nose.
She’ll scoot across the floor...
And out the door...
And into a mud puddle.
Then she’ll want a sink bath.
She’ll ask you for your freshest pie while she is in the bath. Then she'll ask for her brother. When you turn to call for him, she'll escape.
She’ll dress herself and learn to walk.
She’ll find her brother and challenge him to a tricycle joust.
Then she’ll command him to do fancy tricks like touching his nose to the floor.
She’ll command others to do fancy tricks as well.
She’ll be a bit sassy about it.
You’ll ask her what’s going on, And she’ll ask you for a crayon.
You’ll give her one of your finest crayons, And she'll make wall art for her brothers to enjoy.
But by the time you’ve found her again,
Chances are, The iced coffee will have worn off.
]]>Dreams Come True
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081106-172001
-Grandmother Boo
]]>Kid Election Day
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081104-154832
This morning I took James (8) to the polling place, where he was able to vote in his own "kid election." Based on this e-mail excerpt from grandmother Boo a few days ago, I had some confidence in his being able to practice an informed choice or two.
It was so nice to have James on Saturday. Big Daddy and I are so pleased and impressed with his way of being in the world, including his interest in the election. Sunday morning he wanted to know what the polls were saying and when I told him Obama's lead in Minnesota was good, he said, Minnesota doesn't matter... wow. Of course he gets it from interested parents, but not all kids pick it up.
He made a comment about asking Mr. Nelson about being born in Russia, but could he vote in the U.S.? Is any child adopted by American parents immediately a citizen? James said it was 'confusing' though I think he understood that he is a citizen. Are the wee Russians instantly citizens? I remember something strange about passports & being stopped coming into the country...
]]>The Great Pumpkin
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081103-172924
The term comes from the Classic Charlie Brown movie, but we invented the ritual. On Halloween night, after everyone has gorged on candy, we brush teeth, climb in bed, and dream of the Great Pumpkin, who creeps in the night, eats ALL THE CANDY, and leaves pumpkin marked presents in its place.
Great Pumpkin anticipation outstrips candy coveting. I get as excited as the kids about running downstairs to find the colorful packages on the kitchen table (we have similar rituals for Valentines Day and St. Patrick's day). We talk about All Saints day and the beautiful dance we saw at church commemorating the souls that have passed this year.
This year I also organized all the costumes for next year, labeled by name and type, with extras just in case--a good way of averting conflict over who's wearing what next year. I tell the kids that next year we'll embellish by making homemade masks and face paint. Something to look forward to!
Daisy was Cindy Lou Who (who was not more than two) for Halloween.
A Chinese philosopher once proclaimed that “before there was anything, there was music.” I can’t help but believe that dance was close on its heels...
My mom was a dancer, a good one. She apprenticed with Martha Graham, auditioned for Broadway shows, came very close, met my dad, had me. One of her best friends from boarding school went onto run Martha Graham. Mom hung it up and became a dance critic for the Pioneer Press. I got to see Baryshnikov when I was three. I got to sit in on rehearsals for New Dance Ensemble. I lived with Mom in dance culture, but never thought to like it...
I was an athlete--more of a dabbler. Baseball, football, hockey, soccer, basketball, tennis. To this day, I can lose gracefully in every sport. In tenth grade, I got injured and took up theater, which led to a fruitful college acting career and a half-baked one in Hollywood, but I avoided musicals because they required dance. “Is he trying to do aerobics?
Curiously, in college I went to nearly ever dance production, often to see friends perform, but just as even when friends weren’t involved. Ballet. Jazz. African Drums. I was drawn as a spectator, but vestiges of that adolescent thin skin kept me from taking the plunge and auditioning.
My kids are athletes. They know how to move because my wife D. and I never stop moving. I coach their teams, baseball, basketball, soccer. I teach them at home. “Dip your back knee when you pitch and bring your leg around.” My four year old has no interest in sports, but he’s very athletic. He wants to dance. I see him twirl and lunge and stomp and I marvel at the beautiful “aerobics” he does. He is a dancer. I am proud.
It turns out that boys like to dance, except when they’re told that they shouldn’t. Circus Juventas founder Betty Butler disparages that girls gravitate toward circus more than boys, but that her dance classes fill up equally. Dancing is the purest form of fun and athleticism. It’s no guarded secret that the Dallas Cowboys have trained with ballet for decades, and retired cowboy great Emmitt Smith says that training to win “Dancing with the Stars” was the most physically demanding challenges of his life.
Sam Rockwell is a 25 year old drummer who grew up in the Twin Cities and moved to New York. Now he’s a campaign manager for a NYC city councilman. He’s an athlete, tall and handsome with dark curly hair. His dad’s an athlete, also handsome, bald, a winner, so much so that his name is “Win.” Sam’s mom is a local theater producer. Sam had no choice but to be a renaissance man, and at the center of his childhood was dance.
We have tried a few community ed dance programs for our four year old. Girls in pink tutus mostly, adorable. My son has tried to fit in but can’t quite. He is fitful, uncooperative, intense, riveting. He reminds me of Billy Eliot, whose father thinks he should be a boxer, but who rebels by dancing with a boxers fury in his feet and torso and eyes. My son has a like intensity, but our overweening love and support probably won’t feed his fury--he’ll have to find it somewhere else.
P.S. This is Drums Alive, a wildly inventive and deservedly popular YMCA program that I reference in this month's column. Many thanks to Group Exercise Specialist Sean Levesque for hustling up this photo. More info at www.ymcatwincities.org.
]]>Blueberry Pie
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081028-184257
Sailor and Mick were working at the table doing homework so I could answer questions about the letter H and counting by fives while measuring the berries. Nate and Mark were playing mermen--tying blankets around their waists and racing around sliding on the floor battling octopi, crabs and baby Daisy, who shrieked at them as she stumbled on new walking legs. James and John were at Cub Scouts, while Sheff worked on a writing deadline.
I made a double batch rectangular pie. The dough felt clean and smooth, unlike the mess of my day. As I cut neat slices for a lattice top, I became suddenly aware of why people love cooking. I don’t particularly, but tonight I did. The pie was a start to finish accomplishment, sweet, richly colored and beautiful. Just a slice in a day. ]]>Search Terms
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081025-203035
Here we are, seven months into this blog, and as a testament of what we have covered so far, here are the 50 most popular search terms that have landed visitors at our site. Personally, I find this list fascinating...
where can i get a liturgical calendar that i can color in with crayons ]]>JOE SIXPACK
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081024-184637
Brought to you by...
100% American.]]>The Tickle Monster is Here!
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081019-144346
The Tickle Monster is Coming. More rhyme, play, and fun in this much-anticipated follow-up to his A Child’s Guide to Common Household Monsters. Both monster books have passed the test of my seven with flying colors, which says a lot about Scott’s story appeal to a very broad range, including adults. I’m always delighted to find books that I enjoy reading as much as the kids enjoy having them read. Scott’s writing seems to give my eyelids helium boosts even in my most groggy tuck-in moments with the kids.
Check out Scott’s site, www.jamesthach.com for more info about him and his books, including his upcoming opus of love, a lyric poem about a wayward seal pup. I read it a while ago in an earlier draft and it was fantastic. I can only imagine how good it is now. Its scheduled for release in Fall ‘09.
You can also buy the book and play the Tickle Monster Video Game at http://theticklemonster.com/ Yeah! ]]>Family Dog?
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081018-220728
Please note: This Shih-Poo is not Mixie.
Mixie is a small, poodle type hypoallergenic dog. Really they breed those. Mixie is a boy, the poor thing will have gender identity issues upon departing our home because we all called him "her" and "Misty" repeatedly. Sheff took to calling him Mr. Mix-a-lot and laying down a beat-box. Daisy thought this was quite grand and did a little dance each time.
I figured it would be an all American experience, you know, boys and dogs and all that. I thought they could all wear jeans, no shirts and frolic in the leaves, saying things like "Gee what a super time we are having Mixie!"
The actual highlight was Daisy finding high perches and stretching at the dog in gibberish "Ma, blog, TA TA TA, Anya ga Shiva WHO" while gesticulating widely. Mixie would cock his head and yip in agreement. It was a battle of the tiny.
Mixie came Wed afternoon--by Thursday morning Mickey had morphed into a large itchy blob of a boy. Mickey does not complain about pain, never has. He will just kick through it and ask me what is happening next-- as being able to look forward to going to Grandma Boos on Tuesday might cure an earache on Sunday. It was clear Mickey was reacting, so we gave him Benadryl and hoped he’d recover.
He started taking baths. His affliction grew worse, huge blisters and hives covering everything--his hands swelling. We had to call for help--good samaritan Uncle Tom and kids--to take the dog away. Then the cleaning started, and the crying. Tom and Leslie have nine hundred cats and one poodle aint no thing in the fur menagerie.
SailorAnn was the most upset about Mixie leaving. The doggie bed and toys had been in the room she shares with big brother James. SailorAnn loved walking Mixie, she even brushed his hair and gave him her fave mini Carebear. Her tears were real I felt horrid for her. Mickey said, through swollen lips "it wasn't Mixie fault".
So we’re probably not going to get a dog anytime soon, but at least it’s nice to know that the one that got a way--well, that we sent away--legitimately stole our hearts. After Mixie’s departure, I had to wash everything, pillows, comforters, cushion covers. I vacuumed until 1 am and got up with everyone to start the laundry loads. Heavens, that tiny little dog was everywhere! I felt like Hera (The Greek Goddess of the hearth) was punishing me for thinking I should just let the house go for MEA weekend.
Mickey is still a bit puffy but on the mend. Sailorann has named all her dolls oddly canine names like fluffy and lulu. James attached leash to a stuffed tiger--Mark freaked out and tackled James, Nate is waxes poetical about his day with Mixie, while John is resigned to the loss. Sheff and I are...still cleaning.
]]>Stranger Candy?
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081013-220036
A Little House on the Prairie at the Guthrie Theater this weekend. During intermission, James had to use the restroom, so D. took him downstairs as James disappeared and then re-emerged moments later looking proud.
JAMES: Mom. A really nice man in there gave me a peppermint?
D. (disturbed): A what? A who?
JAMES: A peppermint. He said I was smart cause I figured out how the sink worked.
D. (relieved): Oh...you mean...a compliment?
JAMES: Yes. One of those.]]>Credit Risk?
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081008-214201
Sailor, 6, has something on her mind but doesn't quite know how to bring it up.
DAD: What's up Sai?
SAI: Dad. Where can I get a cret card?
DAD: A what?
SAI: A creh-dih-card?
DAD: A credit card? Why do you wanna know?
SAI: My brothers want one.
DAD: Really? Well, tell your brothers credit cards are dangerous. You know why?
Sailor thinks for a moment...
SAI: Because you can cut yourself?
DAD: Yup.
]]>Top 7 (Plus Two) Tips for Planning a Puking Party
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081007-204714
When the Otis family gets sick, it gets throw-down, rockem-sockem, lovely lily Linda Blair vomitorious. The sheer effluence that we have accomplished in the last four days calls forth the majesty of Victoria falls, ancient times when whale spume spined the seas, and that fancy fountain in Vegas.
Although many parents blog to plead daily hardship and vie for credit, D. and I are too busy changing rubber sheets and paddywaggin' kids home from school to do either--all we can do, between pinch-nosed breaths--is stretch for that narrow sliver of perspective. This bout of illness has pierced our well-deserved amnesia to remind us of how to better prepare for next time. Nine tips...
1. Secure blast radius. The best use for those left over crib mattress pads. Add a decorative fringe of towels and save countless dollars on carpet cleaner.
2. Lower all kids to bottom bunks immediately once the first kid has turned green.
3. Customize containers, decapitated gallon jugs, buckets, and/or wastebaskets with 4 gallon waste basket liners. The liners can be whisked out and replaced without having to wash containers.
4. Unless you have a tiny infant, don't try to protect kids from infection. If one turns green, they will all turn green. Better to toss them all to the wolves and pass around a sippy cup!
5. Don't send the "healthy" ones to school. Even if the uber-immune kid doesn't walk and talk bubonic, don't be fooled, he is a carrier. Save teachers and caregivers the hassle and realize that your own hassle is temporary and has an economy of scale.
6. Act like a new mom, sleep when the sickies sleep, because you won't be able to count on nights.
7. If you do survive the onslaught, you have been eating raw garlic and fresh lemon juice and deserve a nice hearty pat on the back (hold off on the smooching).
8. Buy fragrant candles to cut the stench, but don't use your favorite vanilla honeysuckle sunset candle or you will gag immediately on future romantic nights with your dear spouse.
9. Enjoy the unnatural calm of your subdued kids. Infirmity is an opportunity to share captive, quiet moments of unabridged sweetness and comfort. From my own childhood, I remember that backrubs were as healing as Tylenol.]]>Tractor-cize
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081006-214120
Two-year-old Mark notices that this toy tractor can wiggle its chassis, as if doing a tiny bootie-dance, and says to me...
MARK: Look, Dad, this truck can do exercises!
ME: Wow! What kind of truck is that?
MARK (with a quizzical look): Mine.
]]>Typical Autumn Day
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081005-192334
Sunday
12:00am All is quiet in the Otis house. I have the night sweats, I do this when I have the pregnancy or nursing hormone and my immunity is down, I change PJs and get back into bed, squeezing between Sheff and Markie on one side and Mickey on the other.
3:00am James has a bad dream, I listen he calms down. I go around and cover everyone up, carry Mickey back to the bottom bunk in his and Johnny’s room, turn off the orange sea horse night light. Slip back into bed.
4:30am Daisy wakes up. I make a warm 4 ounce platex nurser bottle. She fusses, nurses a minute then takes the bottle, finishes the bottle I pat her back, she pats mine and nuzzles into my neck. She cuddles down with her baby doll.
6:30am “Mommy, do Tigers eat Pony’s for real?” Nate’s eyes are very big, Mark rolls over groggy (the tiger lover) and watches for my response. “I, well, Markie Otis tigers most certainly DO NOT eat Natie Otis Pony’s, in the wild its...” I am cut off by a relieved look on Nate’s face and his rapid departure. Mark is now up, and clearly from the ruckus downstairs, so is everyone else.
7:45am Sheff gets up and makes french toast, whole wheat bread from Breadsmith, cinnamon, brown eggs and hormone free milk. Hot water with a little molasses and brown sugar, is natural and cheeper than syrup,q uite yummy. We go through a loaf f bread, a dozen eggs and a gallon of milk.
8:30am A rush to get dressed for church. Sheff showers I get everyone into khakis. I have a shelf of all khakis just for Sunday so I never have to search there are always 7 pairs sometimes 14, clean and folded in age order. Then everyone just needs a collared shirt or nice top. I rub lipstick on my cheeks, upper lids and lips. Cover with a dusting of ivory powder, makeup done! Tight black jeans, fancier top and sandals. I have my ring, forget all other jewelry, always have my Mary medallion.
9:00am Make it to St. Peter Claver Catholic Church religious Ed. Sheff says he always pictures some poor fool named Ed wondering around praising God when I say it is time for Religious Ed!
10:00am Get a latte. A friend once said a latte is a hell of a lot cheeper than therapy, thank you Jen Dusek, you are so right. Once or twice a week we get take out coffee. I realize I have not eaten, the french toast went so fast! We opt out of the 10am service guiltily, we need to get back into the routine of church school and church, it a three to four hour commitment, but I know it is important. I see Father Kevin and feel a wee bit guilty.
11:00am I get Daisy down for Nap, Sheff whips up Mac n'Cheese, cold cuts and pulls out some Harvest Berry Salad I’d made a a few extra Tupperware after needing some for the PTA potluck. (Frozen blackberries, blueberries, blackberries, with cup up honey crisp, pears, and plums, add a teaspoon of sugar for every two cups of fruit and douse with lime juice and a bit of cinnamon, yummy!)
11:30am Sheff reads books to the kids I clean the kitchen. wipe down six stools, sanitize the counter, sweep, mop the floor with vinegar, wash bottles by hand, unload the dishwasher from breakfast, load form lunch, get papers in recycling.
12:30pm Daisy wakes up we gear up for Pumpkin patch outing. Kids try to destroy each other on the way to the door. Sleeves are pulled, names are called, shoes are thrown. Dear heavens, what is the fuss? No one has any idea. Everyone looks around sheepishly and files to the car and hops into assigned seating. Have I eaten yet? I grab a sandwich (french bread, a little pesto, sun dried tomatoes, cold cuts) and I make some black tea. Make Daisy a bottle for the car and we are off.
1:30pm Arrive at Pumpkin farm and petting zoo. We did not plan, our kids are good about these little adventures. Our only promise was “we will arrive home with pumpkins, so chill out and enjoy the ride” We met goats. One goat escaped. This was a highlight. People were watching the goat with trepidation. Our kids, yes our dear children, ran at the thing with all the glee of budding matadors. The goat ran and leaped back into confinement rather than deal with our kids. Oh the pride.
4:30pm We arrive home with pumpkins and set up shop. The kids were quite good, really great about picking one from the $2 table. and they all seem to come and go as a pack no need to round up, its helpful. I think maybe they are just worried we will leave without them. Whatever the reason they MOVE! when it is time to go.
6:00pm We have soup with oyster crackers for supper with 3 bean salad and the promise of homemade pumpkin seeds for dessert. Everyone colors on their pumpkin. Pure chaos, markers flying, pumpkin seeds being glopped into the pans I set out. Daisy squealing, Markie doing a lion dance around the table ritualistically. Sheff trying to get to everyone’s pumpkin to help carve, while still managing creative touches here and there. I washed all the seeds and soaked them in spices and olive oil while we stripped kids down for bath.
7:00pm Kids in and out of baths, two shifts, backing soda in the bath. Baby oil rub downs, Hanna Andersson jammies on, downstairs to try the crispy seeds. Everyone tries them “like little rain drop chips “ Mickey. We bring our masterpieces outside and light candles. Everyone poses for a photo and we hustle it up to bed. Tucked in, animals and lovies distributed. Lights out by 7:45.
8:00pm Whew! Now the second clean of the kitchen (see above for lunch) 2 loads of laundry, Sheff needs to do online work, I need to package and ship 12 orders. We need to find a missing bill, did I eat dinner? I think pumpkin seeds count.
]]>Chivalry?
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry081002-211322
In Kindergarten, Satch got more marraige proposal than anyoe else in his class. He may have revealed why when, on the brink of spring, he asked his teacher how he was supposed to stay "chivverous" when the weather warmed up. ]]>Top 7 things to do when there is NOTHING to do...
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080929-221431
Vacuum the stairs. This is surprisingly fun with a mini shop vac. If any kid says he's bored, he must endure the "punishment"--actually more of a delight--my kids have faked boredom to claim this noisy and satisfying chore.
2. Print off coloring pages. Google "tiger" or "snail." Have kids line up to choose thier own images. Color color! I also do this for church by holy day so kids can color what's being talked about in Mass.
3. Write a letter. Kids love the whole envelope, stamp, address thing. Put it in the mailbox and make a grandparent or friend's day.
4. Take photos with a digital camera. (Me with Mick from today) practice taking photos and posing, wrist-on-chin glamour shots. Pictures go over big around here!
5. Bake something, anything! Mix, sift, read and count ingredients, practice math with a yummy result.
6. Scrapbook. I keep a box of extra photos and pull out stickers and scratch paper for kids to make their own pages--a great way of talking about seasons and happenings.
7. Make a match box car maze with books and blocks all around the house. Books can be tunnels, bridges, parking garages, and jumps. Cleaning up, we pick up five books--read one, pick up five more--read one. Before you know it the floor is clear and kids' heads are full of words!
HEY MOMS, WHAT ARE YOUR BOREDOM BUSTERS???]]>Scholar
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080927-180241
Six year old John asks to wear my glasses. I hand them over.
“I am a professor, he proclaims (actually looking like one)...
He tears the glasses off deftly, as if to make scholarly point...
“A professor of numbers!” he finishes. ]]>Ouch!
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080925-215202
As I (Dad) tuck Mick, 5, into bed, he reflects on bonking heads with John, 6, earlier in the day.
MICK: It hurt.
ME: I know Mick. I’m sorry that happened.
MICK: It hurt like fire.
ME: I’m so sorry.
MICK: And broken glass...
...and nails poking in my head...
ME: Oh Mick-
MICK: And a hedgehog...
ME: Oof.
MICK: ...like lightening cracking my head apart...that’s how much it hurt.
ME: How's your head now?
Mick: Fine. ]]>College
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080924-204815
From Grandma Boo...
James and Sailor were in the back seat discussing things (Macalester kids we were passing) and Sailor asked James what the difference was between high school and college.
James said, "HIgh school is when you pick what you want to do, and college is where you practice what you picked. One is pickers and one is practicers!"
]]>House Painted Green
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080922-225640
This is the latest draft of a poem I wrote about the process of green remodeling. The house pictured is a recent Buck Brothers remodel, soon to be featured in the Parade of Homes Remodeler's Showcase.
PS: I'm working on adding more pictures.
This is your house It’s old and its gray. Its outsides look broken Its insides feel frayed.
This is your kitchen And there is your sink The cabinets are crusty The faucet drips. Plink.
Living room carpet Smells musty and stale And family room windows Leak air in a gail.
The bathroom is cheerless With tiles cracked and cold The john runs all day In the shower cracks. Mold.
There is your room It’s not at all bright If not for those lamps You'd scarcely have light.
Your house looks forgotten A shadow in time But things will have changed By the end of this rhyme.
---
This man is a builder. He calls himself Stan. He comes with two friends And a clipboard with plans.
His friends have big forearms And wear coveralls They talk about music And great fishing hauls.
Stan chats with your parents And then with his friends The friends grab tool pouches And black bars that bend.
The friends put up plastic To keep out the dust The friends nail up temp walls So ceilings won’t bust.
The friends tear down plaster And partition walls They talk through their dust masks Between plaster hauls.
They leave healthy stud boards All eight foot in length And haul out the sick ones With uncommon strength.
They cut out old ductwork And yank out old wires They saw out old plumbing Their shoulders get tired.
They take quicky breaks Just to get some fresh air “It’ll look nice,” they pant [You can’t tell from their hair!]
Stan brings in some more friends Gargantuan plumbers They come in Dodge Sprinters [A far cry from Hummers!]
They wear comfy clothing And padded knee braces The plumbers are huge But must work in tight spaces.
They reroute the plumbing To make it make sense They pretest its pressure And recheck its vents.
They cut through the floor And run tubing for heat [When the thermostat’s low You will still have warm feet!]
And when they are finished They wave you good-bye And in leaps a man With a spark in his eye.
He carries a bucket With cutters and tape And spools to fish wires Through walls where they gape.
"Spark" jigs and he fishes, He mounts and he rigs Cuts just what he needs (His waste bucket’s not big).
When his work's completed The house neatly wired The HVAC men breeze inside Looking inspired.
With round rigid ductwork And razor sharp shears Their hands bare raised scars From barbed edges through years.
They mount the ducts stiffly And seal them tight [But the ducts look too small Something must not be right!].
“Your new house,” they tell me Won’t need as much heat It will leak much less air More efficient and neat.
But because air exchange Through the walls will be slower We must maintain fresh air With help from a blower."
With blower in place And the ducts all secure The HVAC men pack And throw their trucks in gear.
Then in walk two men Dressed a lot like Darth Vaders They wave and proclaim “We’re the foam insulators!”
They start to spray foam In the walls and its seams But the foam is not harmful It’s made from soybeans!
The purpose of foam Is to keep in the heat (or to keep out the cold) And stop vapor’s retreat
(...to stop mold in the walls Whose spores broadcast through halls And can sometimes cause sickness For kids who are small).
When done with their spraying And plugging and sealing They hit the next job, In demand, tires squealing.
Incoming! Sheet-rockers! Laughing and joking They work like the wind Gross! Their t-shirts are soaking!
They cut around outlets, And windows and fans In just a few hours They’ve covered great spans.
Then they pass on their work To the mudders and tapers Who spool from their “banjos” Wet tape made of paper.
When tapers and mudders Have covered their cracks The sanders come in With a dusty attack.
It’s shocking to see them (Although its their norm) They are head to toe dusty As if swept by a storm.
And when they retreat In their billowing coats The painters sail in Dressed in white (as on boats).
They tape and drop clothes To protect trim and floors Then they get out their brushes And jump to their chores.
Their paint does not smell So they smile and sing And they philosophize (Painters do) ‘bout most things.
The walls now gleam brightly Not much more to go The house will be done soon (Stan might beat the snow!)
Trucks come with appliances, Cabinets, and trim And the Friends install all With great vigor and vim.
The plumbers come back To install plumbing fixtures And painters stain trim With more nontoxic mixtures. Sparky mounts sconces, Fans, outlets, and switches. Screws compact flourescents In all the right niches.
Then Stan and your Parents They meet once again To discuss new house systems And how to use them.
“Lower your thermostat Just two degrees And draw open your your blinds Even in a hard freeze...
...the sun that comes inside will Warm up your home And the warmth will stay in Your walls filled up with foam.
Stan talks of appliances Shows their controls. “These really will cut down On energy tolls.”
He says, “turn off lights. In daytime you won’t need them. And change furnace filters Rid spores and don’t breed them.”
This is your house It’s new and it’s green Its parts work in sync Like a well-oiled machine.
The air feels healthy The water is pure The walls are sealed tight And they’re built to endure.
The washer and dryer Dishwasher and fans Consume boatloads less power Used in the same spans.
The paint on the walls Is nontoxic and bright And the south-facing windows Just pour in the light.
This is your kitchen A whole different planet With sparkling countertops Made from used granite!
The faucet is streamlined And doesn’t have drips And the reclaimed elm floors Are like swabbed decks of ships.
New cabinets are built From sustainable trees From farms in great forests Where workers live free.
This is your living room Open and and airy Here is your family room Cozy and lairy.
Walking the floor Of the bathroom’s a treat ‘cause You’re chilled toes warm over With radiant heat!
Here’s your new toilet Its functions are freeing One flush handles pooping The other’s for peeing.
Here is your room No more need for those lamps You can read through the daylight Without those eye-cramps!
Your windows are brilliant Your fan gives you breezes And what a surprise No more sniffles and sneezes!
These are your parents They’re in a good mood They also feel healthy With changed attitude.
They’re proud of your new home Aware of its worth By the mere act of living You now help the Earth.
End
House Painted Green is in part a tribute to one of my favorite children's books, Building, by Elisha Cooper, Click on comments below for details.
]]>Breast vs. Bottle
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080921-084924
I read the first debate of question in Brain Child magazine, a great read for “thinking” mothers. I remember wondering what I would choose to do. (Yes I read these sort of articles long before I had children) As it turns out each of our four biological children had different experiences. Our first bio babe, Mickey, was early and had to stay in NICU, he had breast milk until 6 months or so, all due to pumping! We purchased a freezer just for breast milk. The next bio, Nate, only had about 6 weeks of breast milk, I lament this fact. I didn’t have the friend support at the time to navigate the trials and tribulations of breast-feeding. Although, Nate is perfectly happy and I have not noticed any cognitive or developmental difference! I do think that the early breastmilk fat is especially crucial for emotional development, so even a couple weeks really helps get that brain power going. I also lament the fact I could not provide that milk for our adopted babes. With our third bio I think we found a wonderful balance. I had recently read an article saying Germany recommended 6 months of breast milk and then the overall benefits diminished slightly. I also read Dr Sears say that the most important thing was the skin to skin contact, the being held while fed. With Markie we introduced a bottle between 4 and 6 weeks, Sheff did one bottle feeding a day, at bedtime. It gave him quiet baby time while I wrangled the other 5 into bath, stories and bed. Then Mark would nurse the rest of his feedings. At 6 months he had bottles during the day and I stopped pumping, he had formula after nine months. It was team work and he was happy to be held by others, a very pleasant babyhood. With our fourth bio babe I exclusively nursed until this month, 15 months! I wish I had introduced a bottle earlier, Sheff missed the chance to cuddle and feed her as he did with the boys. I have loved the being able to eat so much and still loose weight, and I have loved the connection with Daisy. I am so happy to have been able to have nursed this long but am ready for her to take a cup.
As always my thought is a happy mom is a happy baby, do what works for you. I think breast-feeding is the best route at first but that it is important to take cues from yourself and your spouse for what works best, especially after six months.
Mark is currently “nursing” his tiger. ]]>Tomatoes Away!
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080916-192932
Mom asks the kids to go into the tomato garden and pick some good ones for tonight's sauce.
The kids survey the garden, looking for winners...
Big Brother has an idea...
A wildly popular idea!
Mom calls from inside: "Where are my tomatoes? Dad, tell those kids to bring 'em in!"
"Yes, Dearest!"
Thwunk! Thwink!
Oops!
The dinner bell rings...
Chow time!
And then some!
]]>Socks & my brain
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080912-131207
Rent trying to find the motivation to go tackle the four baskets of laundry at the foot of our bed. Four actually ain’t bad! I had a friend once try to sell me on once a week laundry. For us that would amount to 14 loads on one day. I like keeping a rhythm going, and as hard as it may be to believe, regular loads allow us to get by with fewer clothes overall (though I have been known to pick up a new package of socks or unders when I get behind).
Motivation for the mundane? Watching Friends reruns or music helps. I also love sitting on the bed pairing socks with one of the kids and getting to hear tid bits from their day. I always start with an open ended question "Who did you sit next to today at lunch?” so I can’t get a yes/no response!
Do other mom’s ever wonder about what is happening to their brain as they pair socks? I love being home, actually take pleasure in my job, but I do lament my lack of challenge some days. I often create challenged by inventing new systems (the kids now all have individual sock bins on the bottom shelf of their lockers) or rearranging rooms (we seem to play musical beds with every new season). I have to say, goal-based projects are more fun than the basic household chores. Although right now I'm picturing hundreds of other mom’s pairing socks and pondering the shifts in their own brains...
Laminate important papers, flash cards, lunch numbers, play games to memorize. Laminate bus tags and info sheet from teacher, easier to find quickly and will hold up through the year. Laminate schedules and make notes with dry erase markers--easy to update. Laminate, laminate, laminate!
Visit classrooms during the first two weeks--allows me to learn kids' names and create relationships with teachers.
Donate extras to the class like wipes and paper-towels, teachers will thank you.
Kids arrive home and unpack backpacks. I have an inbox on my desk for papers that need attention, permission slips, etc. Kids know the drill. We have a paper bag near our lockers for recycling backpack clutter.
Set up a homework routine. Our dining room table is always clean and stocked with a cup of sharpened pencils and paper (we dine in the kitchen--civilized meals are a few years out). Preschoolers can color pictures that start with a letter to build routine into the night from age 4 up. Coloring distracts preschoolers, keeps them from pestering school-agers trying to concentrate.
We do something each night even if nothing is assigned, eg. schoolagers can write spelling words out or practice writing names and addresses (K & first).
Packs go on hooks when homework is done, ready for tomorrow.
Good luck Moms!
D.
P.S. Hey Moms. What are your routines? ]]>OUR FAMILY CIRCUS
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080901-210233
IF KIDS RAN THE CIRCUS, takes a look at local youth circus arts programs. Circus is a unique alternative to sport, but it can also be a great training complement for athletes. In fact, Circus Juventas director Betty Butler has actively sought to draw middle school and highschool athletes into her classes by providing tuition breaks to students who bring in athlete friends.
Meg Elias Emory, director of Xelias Aerial Arts , encourages budding aerialsts to train at home. She recommends praciticing pikes and pullups at the playground and balancing in the living room. Her "Ab Parties" are fit fun for the whole family!
Josie Winshop, who runs a circus arts summer camp out of her Seward Neighborhood home, empowers "troupers" with imaginitave play, improvisation, and humor.
Here are few pages from my family's ever-growing "circus playbook." With a little practice, we'll be ready to descend soon upon one or all of the above circuses! What fun!
-The Dadiator
------------
TRAPEZE JAMB
AERIAL GRIP
TREADMILL TRAPEZE
BALANCING... ACTS
LION TAMER
ELEPHANT TRUNKS
BACKYARD BIG TOP _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
For busy parents looking to combine priorities of kid time and fitness, and for additional "throughout the day" fitness strategies, check out "dadiator-workout.com," COMING SOON!!!
]]>BLOCK PARTY
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080825-204119
Our dear neighbor organized most of it and we are so grateful. It was a perfect time to gather and connect as a community (although I admit to having spent most of the evening worrying that Mark might pee with glee all over the brightly polished fire truck seats. Oh yeah, and I had to pull James out of the cop car just before he figured out how to handcuff Johnny.
We neighborhood moms delight in these warm August nights and the opportunity to attempt short adult conversations while kids play--learning more about the stories and lives that bloom from houses we pass every day.
Block parties also abound with free food. The rule in our house is “if somebody freed it...hurry up and eat it!” One neighbor made gingerbread that made Sheff’s eyes roll back in his head.
My contribution. Hot dogs. Oh yeah!
Daisy loved the fireman hats and squawked at our heroes as they departed with sirens blaring. A wake of neighborhood kids tailed the truck with dancing legs and covered ears.
Last year a policeman showed up first, and when the kids assailed him with the question “Where are the firemen?” the officer’s reply was a jaded half-breathed groan. “Everybody loves a fireman,” he said.]]>Terse Girl
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080819-195524
My mother bore two sons, and though she loved us, I think she was disappointed that one of us wasn’t a girl, because boys don’t talk.
Dinner table conversations with me and my brother were pulling teeth. Mom would tell Ty to pass the peas, only to realize that he wasn’t actually there, but had slid under the table and exited the house. Ty was quiet like a cat. Me, I just didn’t know how to respond questions like “How was your day?” I didn’t think to evaluate whether this was an open ended or close ended question, so I just followed the path of least resistance. “Okay,” I’d reply.
But I’ve found that girls can be pretty terse too. When I came home from work today, D. asked me if I would take back the carpet cleaner I’d rented (to clean vomit out of the living room rug), and as I headed toward the door, she added “and bring Sailor. You and she could use some one on one time.”
Sailor was nowhere to be found. I looked downstairs, in the basement playroom, upstairs, and finally found her on the master bathroom toilet reading a construction magazine.
“Wanna go to the store?” I asked.
“Yep,” she replied, hopping off the pot like a rodeo cowboy.
In the car, I asked her about her school day.
“How was your school day?” I said.
“Good,” she replied.
“What was good about it?”
[Long pause]. “Don’t remember.”
“Did you--um--learn any letters?”
“Yep.”
“Which one?”
“L.”
“Do you like that letter? Do you like Ls?
“Yep.”
“Is L your favorite letter?”
“Nope.”
“Do you like Ls more than Ms?”
“Nope.”
“Have you learned Ms yet?”
“In two days.”
“So what’s your favorite letter so far?”
“M.”
Flustered, I pulled into a parking spot at the grocery store.
“What’s your favorite word...to spell?” I asked, thinking I was opening a mile-wide vein of conversation.
“Box.”
[Long pause].
“Who’d you play with today at school?”
[No answer].
As I heaved the carpet cleaner out of the car, I asked my laconic young daughter if she’d give me a hand.
“No,” she said, with an easy candor.
]]>Walk in the Woods
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080814-233040
Highlights were hikes with Daisy on my back, the peace of physical exertion.practicing words with Daisy on the way up the rocky white triangle path. That is a tree, that is a bird, this is a stick... by the end of the trip she was saying "dis! dat!" Clearly I need to point and say Tree! Stick! So funny. She is very proud of her dises and dats.
During the the hike down I would have new breath and often did part of a Rosary, feeling the steps beneath my feet like prayer beads. The rhythm of hail Mary and Our father. Such beautiful moments for prayer. Being at Camp du Nord as a family without having to cook and clean seemed to create extra hours in the day. Plenty of time for small connections with each child, like nuggets of gold. Talking to Nate about nature, hearing James tell his knowledge of Native American folklore, watching Sailorann learn a new swim stroke, seeing Mark bond more with Nate during camp activities, talking to Johnny about how to make a friend, having Mickey go camping overnight and canoe with Dad for the first time. ]]>A Week in the Life: Monday
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080807-111651
Avatar, an impossibly mystical and opaque cartoon in which rival martial artists talk endlessly at each other and rarely actually fight.
The morning crescendos toward a mad dash out the door. D. has set up cubbies for each of the kids in the front entry with hooks for coats and compartments for hats and boots. It’s a good system in theory, but the kids have gotten sloppy with putting things away. Their coats and hats and boots are splayed across the living room floor, nowhere near their cubbies, and my brain almost explodes as I dig for pairs of mittens. I don’t care if they match. The ones I find do match, but they’re all lefties.
The kids go to three different schools. One first grader and two Kindergartners go to the neighborhood public school. One preschooler goes to a Montessori in the next town. And two go to Little Friends, or Miss Diane’s day care. Miss Diane has three daughters adopted from China, and half the kids in her daycare are international adoptees. Although the kids spent more time sneezing on each other than discussing their cultural heritage, somehow D. and I take comfort in Diane’s diaper diaspora.
D. stays home with the babies and enjoys relative peace, but does not rest. She carries the baby in a nipper sling as she prepares tonight’s dinner, meat loaf. She throws about ten pounds of ground turkey into a pot then starts sprinkling in the thises and thats. She cooks by feel, never using cookbooks because most recipes don’t serve 54. I say 54 because she cooks six meat loaves for nine, one for tonight and five to freeze.
D. freezes things as a meal-planning strategy, but also because she is a compulsive freezer. She freezes things like cheese, cold-cuts and condiments. I tell her “Baby, if you freeze this, I’m not gonna eat it,” which I think plays into her strategy because I eat like Kobyashi the mighty hot-dog champion but she knows that if I try to eat a box of frozen fudge I’ll chip my teeth. Clever wife.
I go to work. I drink a half a pot of coffee on the way. My heater’s broken, and the temperature outside is zero degrees. I rest the warm coffee on my lap between sips. Ahhhh! That’s better!
After work, I take the kids to my ECFE (Early Childhood and Family Education) dad’s class. This is my weekly parenting recharge, an opportunity to hang out with other dads of small children and discuss parenting challenges and strategies ( as well as blood pressure spikes from the previous week). The parenting topic for today is “How to Part with Comfort Items” (blankets, Nuks, etc.). Our teacher asks if any dads have heard of effective rituals for saying goodbye to such items. One dad chimes in. “I hear that in some cultures, children throw their pacifiers to the apes [apparently true].” Another dad, a distinguished professorial type, abstracts about how his child has “internalized” his blanket. I start to think of what an interesting psychological phenomenon this is when he clarifies. “He ate it...It took a number of months, years even, but eventually my son consumed his entire blanket, tags and all.”
I break the silence to explain that my Mark carries a rubber duck, a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger, and a book about bulldozers wherever he goes, and that without one of these holy talismans, he loses his superpowers, not to mention his composure, and becomes a royal pain in the ass. A wizened housepainter across the table grumbles “I hear that one, buddy.”
I should note, ECFE is unequivocally one of the highlights of my week, and though it produces the occasional oddball conversation, it is the most powerful tool in my parenting arsenal.
Home from ECFE, I tuck the kids in bed. Mark won’t sleep in his own bed, and has displaced me in mine. He falls to sleep on my pillow, baby jowls fluttering, snoring like a truck driver. I squooge him aside and read ten minutes of a crime novel before drifting off. These days I read purely for escape. The last real novel I read was "Anna Karenina" on the plane to Russia, but since then it’s been anything with plot bites that can be digested in ten minutes.
April 22, '08 ]]>A Week in the Life: Tuesday
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080806-205344
I go downstairs where Johnny, my five year old, has cranked up the stereo to the White Stripes “Hardest Button to Button.” The lyrics capture my mindset to a tittle.
I’ve got opinions that don’t matter I’ve got a brain that feels like pancake batter.
D. has somehow beaten me downstairs and is serving some unction to the baby. I see it as goo going into the baby’s face, but D. knows that this goo packs the nutritional thunder of an organically grown K-ration, with a perfect balance of protein, carbohydrate, and God knows what else.
The day wears on...
The troops gather for dinner, during which we sing "Johnny Appleseed" and discuss our highlights of the day. Each kids says his or her piece and listens respectfully to the others, until Mickey discovers that he can stick a fork to the magnetic hooves of a "My Little Pony" and starts to eat rice using the pony as a handle. His rice payload is just enough to break the magnetic bond and send his fork plummeting to the floor, creating yet one more mess to clean. D. gives him a look like he’s just killed Christmas.
When you have seven kids, you clean a lot...a lot! It’s not just the spills. It’s the constant flow of grime and trash and effluents and excrement that make Walter the colon-afflicted dog seem like a pleasant house-guest.
What drives this perpetual mess? Consumption. In a week, we consume...
8 gallons of milk 7 loaves of bread 60 diapers 1 tub of peanut butter 2 giant hams (for example) 20 pots of coffee
We generate
10 loads of laundry 14 bags of trash 8 bags of recycling
If we were a smaller family, we would be a Christmas song for the profligate!
Stompin' down the trash.
All this consumption, trash and energy expenditure have motivated us to conserve where we can. We keep the house as cold as a meat locker in the winter and as warm as a woodshed in the summer. We try not to eat too many over packaged foods. D. and I often undereat at dinner so we can clean the kid’s plates and avoid generating excessive food waste. At one point, in an effort to conserve water, I staged little dry-erase cheat sheets next to toilets so the kids could keep track of their flushes. D. thought this was excessive, and the kids found that they could avoid a hassle by peeing in the tub. I ditched the cheat sheets, but it goes with out saying that if it’s yellow, it doth mellow.
When the kids are done with dinner, they dutifully clear plates and go off to play. They’re good workers, even the little ones.
Satchel, my eldest, spins a Chinese top that our neighbors have just brought home from an adoption trip. The top is designed to spin with the aid of a string attached to a stick, which the spinner whips at the top to feed the top’s momentum. Satch flogs the top like he’s trying to get it to confess, displaying a manic ruthlessness which has also surfaced in scary hula hoop and jump roping skills.
I kindly interrupt my young son by inviting him into my dojo, and as I pretzel his limbs into various configurations that will make him bionic in gym-class flexibility tests, he lets fly with all the new words he’s learned on the schoolbus.
--
Satchel came from a town called Ussurisk, forty minutes inland from the Far East port city of Vladivostok, the terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. When our plane touched down on Russian soil I felt as if we were landing on the back of a sleeping giant. Such history. Such burden, sadness, blood, potential and hope. The Russia I’d known had been the one of malaise and resignation portrayed in Checkov plays, a place where promising people buried themselves in little lives of hardship and distraction. The Russia we had stepped into was an alternate universe, a place of fairy tale meringue architecture and stark concrete shoe box domiciles, such clear delineations of the country’s cultural battles. From above, the landscape around Vladivostok had resembled a frontier, with an occasional cicatrice of roads and clearings that may or may not have been made by people. My lingering sense of adventure led me to ask our translator if a walk in the woods would be possible. Oksanna, a dear woman and friend to children, laughed at the suggestion. “You can try, but the woods are filled with encephalitic ticks that will kill you...and tigers.”
The first time we met Satch (or Sacha, short for Alexander, in Russian) he came to us in a bright white sailor suit, his giant eyes like pools of distant dreams. He did not approach us, but took us in with those eyes, eyes that told us that we would have to earn his trust, his love, his respect. These things were not a given, like so many others that had been so tidily conveyed with a signature.
A sunlight deficiency had given Satch rickets, which manifested in bowleggedness and trouble balancing. Although he was two when we met him, he couldn’t walk more than five steps without falling directly on his face. His orphanage was humane and his caregivers were loving, but they couldn’t meet every child’s need perfectly. Despite his ambulodeficiency, Satch showed a lot of spirit early on. The first word I can remember him saying is “oy,” as in “Oy, I’m going to push this playground gate open with my might.” His health progressed quickly once we got him home. His legs straightened in a couple months, as he went from walking to running to fading and deking. Now he drives to the hoop like a stalking panther, and as a soccer goalie, he pities the fool who tries to get into “his house.”
April 22
]]>A Week in the Life: Wednesday
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080805-125531
Sailor’s draconian tendencies trace back to her Siberian roots. We found her in an orphanage in the wind-swept former gulag town of Magadan, an austere place with a tragic past. Not far from town in surrounding woods, it is not uncommon to this day to discover human remains and relics of Gulag life. We encountered a group of Norwegian hunters who had found a fully preserved bicycle right in the middle of an elk clearing, a haunting monument to a past that many would like to forget.
Little Sailor also stood, or rather crawled feebly, as a monument of neglect. Again, the conditions of her orphanage were far from Dickensian, but her myriad health issues were more than her caregivers could track. She had a heart problem. We were told it was a “murmur,” but we acknowledged that appraisal with some skepticism. The murmur, or whatever it was, had led to a weakened immunity and chronic ear infections. The ear infections had created permanent perforations in her eardrums and irregular sleep patterns. In short, she was not thriving.
Two years after her arrival into our family, she underwent open heart surgery to correct a major atrial septal defect and a tangling of veins connected to her heart. Within nine months of the surgery, like big brother Satch, she progressed from walking unsteadily to running with purpose. She grew six inches, and her hair thickened into a beautiful mane. Then last year, she had skin graft repair surgery for both eardrums, which brought her hearing from a paltry 20% to 95%.
I only mean to relay my experiences of adoption, without prosyletizing. It’s a personal thing and people do it for all sorts of reasons, some altruistic and many self-serving. But even if I had an inkling to sell adoption, I couldn’t do it nearly as well as lionhearted kids like Sailor do, just by the mere act of surviving.
---
I blink, and the day has passed. I pull into the driveway, home from work. The door opens and, Johnny, Sailor, and Mark poke their heads out in succession and scream “Hi Dad.” Then Mickey pokes his head out. He’s beside himself.
“Hey Dad, I got new slippers, he bellows.” He wheels around and accidentally plows into a gigantic pile of boxes, maybe ninety six of them. “What the heck is that?” I ask. D. enters the scene, handing me a cup of coffee and looking supernaturally fresh. “I got a great deal on-line for paper towels and hypoallergenic detergent,” she cheerfully explains.
---
D. does this. She finds deals on-line for detergent, paper towels, diapers, underwear, taco shells, light bulbs and any number of other massively unglamorous things that she finds delightful. While I rue that she spends money on such items, and not on truly important things like matching wristbands and headbands for the kids, I do appreciate the fact that she’s always thinking of the big picture of how to make our family run.
That's what I'm talkin' about!
Fast forward to...
Bath time. More like nipper stew. A thimbleful of water gets you a long way with seven little bodies to displace it. The kids emerge from the bath as if they’ve been soaked in "Red Bull." They race around naked like little orbital-skipping electrons, smacking each other’s buttocks when given advantage. I dry and dress them like I’ve been soaked in "Red Bull" myself. I want them down by eight so I can watch "Lost."
---
The other thing about having seven messy kids is that I have gotten into the habit of watching a preposterous amount of TV. TV offers an incentive to clean during commercial breaks. Every night I have to clean the kitchen and main floor, and every night my moral scruples get the better of me when I think about torching the house and having insurance pay for a new one. On an average night, I spend about an hour and a half to two hours cleaning...cleaning! Imagine if I put that time into something useful, like getting an advanced degree. I’d have like seven Masters by now! But I shouldn’t complain. D. would have seven PhDs. She is a cleaning juggernaut.
As I attempt to enjoy my program, D. swirls around me, sorting toys, mopping, vacuuming the walls. “Why do you do this to me?” I ask her. It turns out that she’s cleaning the house to prepare for a Church fundraiser tomorrow that will alleviate world hunger. A commercial blares and wipes me out of my stupor. I hop to in a meek attempt to redeem my value to humanity.
Okay, but back to TV...
When it’s not shows it’s sports. I was never really a sports fan until I had kids. I never got into hard-guy sports banter with college buddies, partly because my home teams were in a slump, and partly because I hadn’t grown up with the crack that is Sport Center . Nowadays, I watch baseball like its my job. Football, basketball, hockey, whatever. I’d watch Madagascar hissing cockroaches play Tiddly Winks in tiny little Anthony and Iversen jerseys if I could. Sports rule! Thank you, sports gods!
April 22 ]]>A Week in the Life: Thursday
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080805-105807
---
Johnny came from the same play group in the same orphanage as Sailor, but unlike Sailor, he was the poster child for thriving. Johnny walked at nine months, unthinkable in an orphanage setting, and when we met him he was running and lunging and quite the showoff. He has always been physically and mentally advanced. He learned to ride a two-wheeler at three and he remembers lyrics to a song after hearing it once. An adoption specialist at the University of Minnesota even told us not to be surprised if Johnny made it to the Olympics someday.
Johnny’s gifts may reflect the central paradox of his birthplace. Though most people associate Magadan with the gulag, not everyone knows that during Stalin’s purges much of the intelligencia of Western Russia fled East, and that the Far Fast once represented the last frontier of Soviet dominion. As a result, even when the town became a prison, its inhabitants comprised one of most gifted gene pools in all of Russia. Because of this, my Dad casually jokes that my adoptees may be the first in ten generations of Otises to actually do well in math.
Johnny’s gifts also contribute to his curse. His emotions have never kept pace with his mind or his body. Consequently, he has always been overwhelmed by by the slightest flair up in his environment, as well as by the expectations of those who fall into the trap of treating him as older than he is (guilty as charged). When left alone, Johnny often displays laser beam focus on a task and finds comfort in repetitive behaviors whose level of challenge he can manipulate. I once saw him shoot a hundred consecutive basketballs without the slightest flutter in attention. He also showed signs of difficulty with attachment early on, and who knows how much of his independence and competence now reflect his survival instincts as an infant? I no longer have any doubt about his attachment, though, as he is the only one of my children to reassure me on a daily basis that “Dad, I will always be in your heart.”
--
Today I take a long lunch break to get a flu shot, a necessity with an infant in the house. I arrive late to the doctor’s office and walk into the exam room, where I greet my six tremulous children sitting on a single exam table, legs dangling. D. has dressed each kid in his or her own color. Mickey is blue, which means that he has a blue blanket, blue shoes, blue backpack, etc. Johnny is red, Sailor is pink, etc. Not only do the colors correspond to the kids’ individual humors, but they streamline getting dressed in the morning and the perpetual stuff-sifting that invigorates D. and makes my brain go numb.
The nurse comes in and administers flu shots in succession. The kids all wince and some yelp, but when the nurse gets to Mickey, he takes the needle stoically and eyes the nurse as if to say “Is that all you got?” The kids all wait to laugh until Mickey cracks a smile.
Ironically, Mick is the most comfort-driven of all my kids, but he’s also the most Heavy Metal. I rarely see him without double-fisting blankies and an entourage of fixation objects, as he waxes lyrically about the carnage inflicted by dragons, tigers, and other fanged menaces. D. pictures Mick growing up to be a laid-back surfer poet, perhaps taking up where I left off in California, but I picture him more as the hard-looking biker from the breath-mint commercial who compliments an elderly woman on her magnificent breath.
---
When I come home from work to what looks like a miniature Tenth Mountain Division setting up a bivouac in the front yard I hear the drone of a snow-blower--my snow-blower--what the #@!? I look toward my neighbor’s house and see Satch blowing snow in erratic rooster-tails, blasting windows, toppling Christmas decorations, and burying his own plow routes. I open my mouth to chasten the lad but then it dawns on me that this kid is a first class worker, that someday he’ll move mountains.
April 22 ]]>A Week in the Life: Friday
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080804-155917
remodeling contractor that specializes in Green Building. Today I’ve been removing old fiberglass insulation during a kitchen demo so I strip as soon as I get in the door. The kids chitter as I scramble up the stairs into a cold shower, which adds insult to injury given that our home is heated to 60 degrees.
Tonight is fun night, movie night. The kids choose "Barbie and the Nutcracker," which is strangely riveting. When I was in college, I went to virtually every dance performance, but I haven’t seen much dance since. And though Barbie is an animated character with a phenotype not found in nature, her movements are modeled after those of real dancers from the New York City Ballet. Once again, the magical TV box transports me to Never-Never Land, but as two little heads settle on my chest and start to drool through my shirt, I can’t help but enjoy being in two places at once. D., who has two droolers of her own, gets caught up in the moment. “Maybe one more,” she whispers to me. I choke on my popcorn.
April 22, '08 ]]>A Week in the Life: Saturday
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080803-060110
The phone rings. I follow its trail into the bathroom linen closet where someone has stuffed it into a new toilet paper roll and replaced the roll in the bag. How dutiful!
Of course I don’t get to it in time so I call back. Its our baby-sitter, who says she can only stay one hour instead of three. D. and I were supposed to have date-night tonight, and I wanted to see a movie. Ah well.
I coach Satchel’s basketball game, and split reffing duties with the opposing team’s coach. We both hyperventilate into our whistles. Mine is literally called "The Thunderer," and I feel like Zeus commanding the little people down below. ”Double dribble--travel--double dribble--travel,” I bellow. “I thought I made you people in my image. What gives?” After a few minutes I look at the opposing coach. We exchange shrugs and pocket our whistles. Satch puts up K.G. numbers, numerous infractions aside.
Meanwhile, across town, D. has taken three year old Nate (and the rest of the kids) to dance class. He’s the only boy in the class, but his enthusiasm and intensity make for a huge presence. He’s not into sports like several of his brothers but D. and I are so proud of his dancing that we practically levitate.
Yet another joy of seven. They all have different interests and different passions. James, Johnny and Sailor are my little athletes. Mick is my Crocodile Hunter, and Nate is my Billy Elliot, every bit as fierce and independent. Mark’s a little bit of everything, and Daisy secretly pulls all of our strings, ruling from the shadows of cuddledom.
D. and I have our abbreviated date night. We go to a coffee shop, but that’s okay. It’s nice to have a chance to check-in without the chaos. The funny thing is, we spend most of our time talking about the kids and missing them, and when we leave for home, it feels none too soon.
April 22, '08 ]]>A Week in the Life: Sunday
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080802-210205
I come down to breakfast where Mark has arranged his Mighty Morphin Ranger to look like the Barberini Faun straddling a toy truck.
I make pancakes for breakfast. I decide to get creative and throw in bananas. Mutiny. I eat the whole batch myself and start over.
I give a sippy cup to Mark. He has a tantrum. I put his milk in a different colored cup. He grins, raises his fists and says “Go Twins!”
We attempt Church. Everyone knows our family, which is nice, but the downside is that everyone notices when we are absent just as much as when we’re present. We missed last week, but people in the congregation nonetheless offer smiles and hand shakes as we struggle to find a pew with adequate acreage. We settle in and things go smoothly for the first ten minutes. Then little bodies start to jiggle and twerp.
“Ouch,” Johnny cries. A few heads turn. “Mine,” hisses Mickey, as he tears a coloring book out of Johnny’s hand, in the process tearing the book in half.
Mark is conspicuously silent. He grins and opens his mouth and spews four crayons that he’s chewed to paste. As baby Daisy begins to cry, the minister sweeps her out of D’s hands and tucks her under his arm, without breaking from his sermon. Six voices cry out at once, “Hey, that’s my sister!”
The church erupts in laughter. The minister is a magician with children, but I can’t help but think of the ring of fire that will cook the nerves of my daughters’ future suitors.
April 22, '08 ]]>AIRPORT WIGGLES TRAVEL JOURNAL
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080801-204135
Kid Fit Column in the August issue of "MN Parent" magazine.
P.S. My apologies to anyone trying to find the site dadiator.com from "MN Parent." The site, which will actually be called dadiator-workout.com, is slated to launch next month (September '08). Until then, you can hear the latest from the Dadiator (i.e. me) right here at sevensidekicks.com. ]]>Welcome to My Corner
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080730-083125
Since graduating from college, I've worked as a location scout on a film set in Alaska, guest-starred on a Hollywood sitcom, managed a warehouse, and taught high school kids with behavioral and emotional disorders, among other jobs.
More important, I've been married for six years, and my wife Deirdre and I have seven children under 7. No multiples. No kidding.
I know, I look twelve. I get carded buying milk, and when most people hear that I come from a family of seven kids, they assume I'm one of them. But I'm really very mature. Sort of.
With my 10-year college reunion approaching, I am aware that my posse will turn some heads this summer. Many of my contemporaries spent their 20s soul-searching and career building, while D. and I dove headlong into parenting, mindful that our timing would never be right, we'd never have enough money, and we'd never be content enough in our jobs to be perfect parents. We just knew that we wanted a big, rowdy family filled with surging love and chaos that--despite our happy childhoods--neither of us had as a kid.
Batter up!
April 20, 2008]]>Dadiator
http://www.sevensidekicks.com/index.php?entry=entry080728-223028
interview and watch the Dadiator in action at the Minneapolis Star Tribune online.
Working out isn’t easy when you have seven kids. And that’s a good thing!
If I don’t stay in shape, my children will overrun me. They will win. I used to think of them as an impediment to exercise. If only there were fewer of them I could take them to the Y without overwhelming the childcare staff. I canceled my membership and started working out at home, but between the demands of my job and busy household, exercise apart from kids took a back seat to more important things.
Then I read an article in a parenting magazine that described recent mothers exercising alongside infants, and even using them for resistance. What a concept, thought I. My kids range in weight from twenty five to fifty pounds, about the same weights as the dumbbells I’d normally lift. Hmm.
My primary reason to stay in shape is to deal with the constant strain of lifting, spinning, catching, dodging, and running away from my seven little huns. So why not practice the game by playing it, using their small bodies to strengthen mine? I don’t see this as a compromise or resignation of fatherhood, because it can actually be pretty grueling.
The ordinary pushup routine becomes the “Pile on the Back Stack Attack.” The humdrum chin-up becomes the “Master Blaster Pull-up Disaster.” Sit-ups transform into “Sling Your Nipper Ab Rippers.”
I’ve also discovered that kids can be wonderful coaches. They have boundless energy and little sympathy for the need to rest between sets, so they really keep me on task. They are also great motivators, like tiny coxswains. “One more dad, you can do it.” Or if they want to get back at me for sending them to their room earlier in the week--”Is that all you got, weenie man?”
I jokingly call my exercise routine the “Dadiator Workout,” which has not only whipped me into shape, but also serves as a parenting tool, for example...
When madness sets in during a family outing--I’ll tame a tot’s tantrum in the Children’s Museum with a “Baby Back Stair Attack.”
The usual suspects.
A moist read!
Moist!
Mega moist!
Sticky moist!
Cleansed moist!
Stylish moist!
Short-lived moist!
Mini moist.
Drive-by moistening.
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That's what I'm talkin' about!
