Category Archives: Developmental

Milestones and almost-milestones.

Bunk Mates

Posted on by

After months of threatening, and weeks and weeks of researching, we finally made an impulse decision, and bought the kids a set of bunk beds yesterday. We ultimately came to the realization that they are BUNK BEDS and not a set of heirloom Chippendale end tables, and went with the $299 version we found at a local furniture store. They fit our minimum criteria of solid “not dark” wood and were convertible into separate beds, for that moment when Stella starts complaining that she caught Porter secretly snooping through her text message log and whines about having to share her room with her like totally lame younger brother.

If I would have written this last night I would have expounded about the effortless bedtime ritual. Tonight, on the other hand, required a licensed counselor. Stella missed her old bed. Porter required not one, not two, not, three, but seven or eight bedtime rituals before he was content to voluntarily go down for the night. By the time we were finally able to leave their room without subsequent screaming, it was almost 9:30pm.

Right before Stella went to bed last night I reminded her where the stairs on her new bed were and told her that if she had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and couldn’t find them to just yell for me. I would much rather deal with the inevitable night waking than the middle-of-the-night-sheet-changing. And so, at 4:55am I heard the call, and was (moderately) happy to heed the call. The unfortunate downside to this predicament is that she woke herself up enough to have difficulty getting herself back to sleep. Finally, after three return visits, I insisted she just get into bed with us so that I could get another hour of sleep. Steve was already up and surfing the internet by the time Porter shuffled out of bed, and so I suggested he climb in with Stella and I. That lasted all of about seven and a half seconds before all three of us were up and ready for the day.

I am fully prepared for the fact that for tonight and many nights forward, I will again be summoned as a middle-of-the-night bathroom wingman. It’s not like it is anything new, considering I have to make the usual nocturnal runs for the single purpose of standing sentinel while she attends to her business. This is, obviously, the earliest form of the Female Group Bathroom Run. And I guess all I can say is, “Don’t worry Stel, I got your back.”

She Shoots, She Scores, She Laughs, She Cries

Posted on by

Yesterday was the, ahem, kick-off to Stella’s first soccer season. And for those who haven’t witnessed the joy and splendor of the Under 6 category of youth soccer, you have not lived the joy and sorrow of life. And Stella was no exception. Anyone who has ever met my daughter will back me up when I say that this girl was built for physical activity. It’s a perfect trifecta of 1.) physical powerhouse, 2.) bottomless pit of energy, and 3.) a relentless desire to be a participator. And let me just say that in sports, this girl has found her calling.

She went to her first practice on Tuesday where we met her new team-mates and coach. And can I just say that when I use the word “practice” I am using this term in its loosest possible definition. Watching a group of 4 and 5 year olds vie for control of a mini-soccer ball is like watching an drunk swarm of bees. With crying.

I was thrilled to find that their coach is the embodiment patience and enthusiasm. He interjected nothing but fun, supportive and happy mojo throughout the entire process, and was quick to accommodate in whatever way made the process a positive and fun experience for these aspiring footballers. Pervasive throughout each moment of joy and sorrow there was one consistent and clear message: just have fun.

As for my girl, she wore her uniform every day for the three preceding days leading up to the game, however had a somewhat disappointing experience when attempting to do some home practicing. Yes, we have a great yard for kicking the ball around, but we also have a dog who can fit the entire ball in his mouth – and subsequently run off with it. Cue the crying…and the 4-year-old equivalent of cussing out the dog.

And although practice was entertainment worthy of network television, I knew that game day was going to be the epicenter of color-coordinated soccer-loving crazy. Their games are not officially scored, and the refs were well versed in the enforcement of emotional harmony over strict adherence to official league regulations. Want to shoot your goal into the neighboring field’s net? Sure! Covertly use your hands to bump the ball back in the other direction? Well, okay. Just this once. Need an emergency pee break mid-quarter? No problem. We’ll see you when you get back.

Life moves so quickly these days, and my ability to blur out the rest of the world and reflect entirely on my kids as individuals doesn’t come nearly as frequently as I would like. Yesterday was a gimme. There was no way I could look out on that field at that little girl so earnestly participating and not feel nostalgic. Once that first whistle blew, and she was out there on that field she was wholly engrossed in the task at hand, running and kicking her little heart out – and sometimes even within the boundaries of the field she was playing in.

stella

Journey to the Ends of the Earth (and back)

Posted on by

I know you want to hear all the witty and interesting tales from our epic, 3200 mile cross-country dog & kitty show. And really, there is nothing I’d love more than to provide you with all the inane details. But really? When you spend 12 hours in the car for 6 days straight, the most exciting details you are going to get are 6 consecutive posts that include photos of road signs and my feet. Sure, I could tell you in great detail about that funny podcast we listened to in Nevada, or that time both cars almost simultaneously ran out of gas in middle-of-nowhere Wyoming, or how Brian decided his new “South” name was going to be Cotton Arbogast, or how I got a call from the house-sitter while we were somewhere in the middle of Kentucky telling me she had simultaneously locked herself out and the dog in, or how – no matter how hard I tried – I could not break myself of the understanding that traveling West meant you were traveling towards the ocean. But really, I think it’s all just one of those you-just-had-to-be-there kind of things.

Being that this trip was embarked upon for the primary purpose of alleviating some of the moving chaos for Brian and Andrea, it was not exactly designed as a sightseeing expedition. It was however going to be an opportunity to goof off for a while. Then came the call. The call we got from the mortgage broker sometime during that 600 years we spent driving through Nebraska. This, the mortgage broker who assured Andrea and Brian on no less than 7 occasions that everything was taken care of and ready to close by noon on Thursday. The mortgage broker who was shortly going to learn what it means to tangle with Cotton Arbogast. Let’s just say that on Thursday we headed into Wilmington with the realization that it was questionable if there was going to be a house for us to actually move into. But alas, after about a million mortgage reconfigurations and set-backs and nasty emails, they somehow managed to get keys in hand just before the close of business on Friday. Nothing like trying to buy a house during the apocalypse of the national mortgage market.

And so, we aired up our beds and began the celebrating. Celebrating that the drive was over. Celebrating that the escrow actually closed. Celebrating that we no longer had to relinquish any additional precious hours to the time zone gods. Celebrating that Brian had not done physical harm to their mortgage broker. And the next day? Celebration that we managed to survive the celebrating.

Andrea and I spent a day trying to buy the minimum food and kitchen items needed to sustain life in an empty house being that the moving truck was not scheduled to arrive the until day we left, and the boys set out to make sure the hard-wired speakers throughout the property were given the urgent attention they needed. With some help of a new tuner and switch box, Cotton can now listen to his 80’s Monsters of Rock box set on the screened porch OR in the living room OR on the back patio OR ON ALL THREE AT ONCE! As for the rest of the time? It was spent watching the tropical storm and enduring the 150,000% humidity. Yes, really.

After a very sad good-bye, an uneventful flight out of Raliegh, and an overwhelmingly joyful reunion with our children, we were catapulted back into real life last Thursday, and did what any other jet-lagged, out-of-sorts, family would do, and immediately began a new construction project first thing Friday morning. By Monday afternoon the tile was in and grout set, and by Tuesday Steve began his new career as a cabinet builder. Oh sweet new laundry room / pantry / office / mud room how I anticipate thee.

As for my kids, well, they are exactly the same and completely different. You can interpret that in whatever way you wish. They had an absolute ball on the trip – at least that was my interpretation. I think the various family units did their best to spare me the gory details – telling us only the high points and then leaving us to hear the kid’s version of things, which pretty much sounded like the vacation equivalent of being spoon fed sugar straight from the bag: Parties, swimming, movies, treats, kitties, dogs, unicorns, fairies, and rainbows. Which, incidentally, is exactly how I remember my summer vacations with extended family.

The aftermath is also much like I remember it, except that this time I am on the receiving end. The decompression after 11 days of Grandkids Gone Wild has been pretty much what you’d expect: usual selves, squared. Working from his typical baseline of Emotional Chernobyl, Porter fell back into old routines and habits of unleashing The Angry over all things big and small. With the added bonus that he now does it in complete sentences rather than monosyllabic barks. Stella, on the other hand, is our girl on the cusp of something big.

When she turned 4 I had imagined some big transition. I had read about it in all the books and heard about it on all the blogs. There was something about 4 that was supposed to be magical. A move away from the tumultuous 2’s and 3’s, and a move towards the kinder gentler 4’s. And when we woke up on her 4th birthday, I was ready. But it didn’t exactly come that day. Nor the next, or the next. But as we have bumped and skidded along, there has been a slow metamorphosis, one that I had started to notice in the time leading up to our trip. And upon our return, even more. It’s hard to explain exactly, except to say that the books were right. And I shall call them the fantastic 4’s. It has been a pleasant side-effect in an otherwise challenging transition back to normal life. Whatever that is.

And so. Here we are. Back in real life, adjusting to old routines and figuring out new ones. I’ve made it this far without mentioning one of the more obvious aspects of this – the real and true outcome of this adventure: the Arbogasts are gone. A full coastline away. There is lots of talk of regular visits and such, but the bigger reality – and the one that made the most impact on me when we arrived home – was that they are no longer 5 minutes up the road. Happy for them, sad for us.

I’d also like to extend one last thank you to all the friends and family members that helped make this trip possible, it was an ambitious task, made seemingly effortless by the help and coordination of the Grandparents Anderson, the Grandparents Walston, the Eskras Jr., Uncle Scott, the Bakers and of course, to our neighbors for having the spare key that allowed the housesitter back in before Ranger could successfully complete yet another chocolate chip raid on the pantry.

Trying

Posted on by

I have been conspicuously absent lately mainly because it is hard to write with all that screaming. Porter screaming at no one in particular because he wants a hot dog. No, make that oatmeal. No! a hot dog. Nooooo!, oatmeal. NO!!, both. NO!NO!NO!, neither. NO!, a hot dog IN the oatmeal. WHY DID YOU JUST GIVE ME A HOT DOG IN OATMEAL WHEN I CLEARLY WANTED A WAFFLE? Then there is Stella screaming at me for, well, for THE INJUSTICE OF IT ALL! And that over there in the corner? Well, that is me, screaming into my pillow and re-discovering the reason for drinking on weeknights.

There have been so many highs and lows with Stella lately, I could never truly catalog them all. But the recurring theme goes something like this: I ask Stella to do something. She ignores me. I ask again. She continues to ignore me. I huck a shoe at her. Okay, KIDDING! But not really.

Her need to ignore not just my immediate requests, but larger, more emphatic directives like, oh, say, DON’T GO THREE DOORS DOWN TO YOUR FRIENDS HOUSE WITHOUT TELLING ME FIRST. Yeah, ignored that one too. I came out of the bathroom the other day to find her missing – AGAIN. She had bolted across the street, across the intersection to catch up with her friends who were out on a walk. I could hardly see her through the flames shooting from my nostrils.

And so begins the sequence. I do my best to keep it together and not go all Mommy Dearest on her in the presence of other parents, then once I get her home I begin the 5-part lecture series. The one where I begin the long diatribe about L-I-S-T-E-N-I-N-G. I do everything short of thumping her on the forehead with a giant letter L (for listening- get it?)

This, I have realized, is where my inexperience as a mother – coupled with my task-master tendencies – have kept me from finding success with this issue. Firstly, Stella is 4. Try arguing principal issues with a 4-year-old. No actually, don’t. It doesn’t work. In fact, it does quite the opposite, and you find yourself with a 4-year-old saying things like, “Mommy, can we just be done talking about this now?” To which, I usually respond something like, “Yes, if you can tell me what we have just talked about.” This would be an example of mistake #2: expecting a child who cannot listen to a 2-second request to listen (and repeat) a 10 minute conversation. It actually took me a couple of times to figure this one out. I think more and more, the thought of having to sit through another bedroom chat is a far better deterrent than any other punishment I could conjure.

And round and round we go. 1.) Me talking, 2.) her ignoring, 3.) us ultimately coming to an agreement that she will listen better, 4.) repeat steps 1-3 and follow with a strong cocktail.

As for Porter? Well, he’s just a bag of screaming waiting to be opened. Mostly because neither he (nor his sister, for that matter) are all that great at handling disappointment. No, I’m sorry Buddy, we can’t drive to Grandma’s house right now. [screaming]. No Buddy, we can’t go to the park right now. [screaming] I’m sorry Buddy, but your monkey plate is in the dishwasher right now, you’ll have to use another one. [screaming] And then there’s the tractor. Ohhhhh, the tractor. I am guaranteed to get about 30-40 requests every day to play on a tractor, any tractor. We go to Brain and Andrea’s? He finds the riding lawnmower. We go to Sarah & John’s? He finds the riding lawnmower. The boys’ blood, it runs green & yellow and he would step over our cold dead bodies if he thought there was a truck, tractor or car on the other side.

And yet, because parenting is nothing but a persistent rain-cloud of guilt waiting to unleash it’s torrents of regret, I am perpetually blaming myself. Blaming myself for not having more patience, for doing things even though I know they are only making the situation worse (sarcasm, anyone?), for not being able to figure out when to push and when to just back the hell off. Knowing when to just shrug and laugh has been one of my biggest challenges – mostly because it is the least instinctive thing for me to do, yet when I can finally convince myself to do it, it is often the most effective resolution.

I’m thinking you should probably get used to hearing that last paragraph, because over the next 16 or so years, you are going to be hearing it a lot.

Speaking in tongues less these days…sort of.

Posted on by

I am terribly tardy in reporting that Porter has – over the last month or two – begun talking. But only if you qualify talking as a semi-intelligible, mono-syllabic, finger-pointing bark delivered with all the delicateness of a drill-seargant. Cwy! (cry) Dwibe! (drive) Kickle! (tickle) are all games that fall under the “I Say Jump, You Say, How High?” category. Where the “I” is Porter and the “You” are the rest of us dim-witted creatures whose job it is to peel his grapes.

Last weekend, while Steve’s parents were here for a visit, they were each subjected to – literally – hours of sitting in the car while Porter flipped every switch and button he could find. This game of Dwibe! is not a new one, and we spend a great amount of energy to keep him out of eyeshot of either car – lest he decide he wants to spend the next 2 hours rearranging the glove-box. Last week, I naively let him go out into the front yard just as Steve was driving up. After enduring 15 minutes of The Angry we finally just put him in the car with the intention of keeping an eye on him while we went in and out of the house. And I guess this is the part of the story where I have to share that, the car was parked on the street in front of our house, and at some point we were both inside the house long enough for our neighbor to walk by and notice a toddler standing in the driver’s seat of an unattended car. Imagine our supreme delight at opening the door to see our sweet grandmotherly neighbor holding our child and looking at us like we were Britney Spears. Yeah, that good.

But you see, this is how we roll these days: Porter tells us what he wants, we acknowledge that we understand what he wants, then he unleashes The Angry when we don’t give him what he wants.

Porter: Standing in front of the open freezer 5 minutes before bedtime, “WAAAAAAKKKKKLLLLLLLE!”
Me: You want waffle?
Porter: Matter-of-factly, “yeah.”
Me: But Buddy, we are all done with dinner. Waffle tomorrow, okay?
Porter: “NOOOOOOOOOO! WAAAAAKKKKKKLLLLE! NONONO!”

And just like that, he is fully prone, face-down on the floor – just me, him and the unattainable bedtime waffles.

For the most part, his vocabulary is based around a set of commands, and so we have been trying very hard to expand it to include the more benign aspects of conversation. For example, we are spending quite a bit of time these days on colors – progress being measured in oddly triumphant milestones. No longer is everything being referred to as “Geen!”, but instead we are now working with the wildly displaced associations of all the colors.

Me: “Porter, what color is this?”
Porter: “Lelow”
Me: “No, blue.”
Me: “Porter, what color is this?”
Porter: “Geen”
Me: “No, Orange.”
Me: “Porter, what color is this?”
Porter: “Wedt”
Me: “No, purple.”
Me: “Porter, what color is this?”
Porter: “Back”
Me: “No, green.”
Me: “Porter, what color is this?”
Porter: “Lelow”
Me: “No, blue.”

Woo Hoo! 0 for 5. I should have asked him to go double or nothing.

I leave you with a photo of Porter in his favorite sweatshirt. This is a sweatshirt that came as part of a set I hastily bought at Ross, not realizing it had a big-rig emblazoned on the back, with the fanciful title of “Highway Haulin”. Once I realized what I had done, I figured I’d just donate the sweatshirt and keep the jeans. Little did I know that this would singularly become the most requested item in his entire wardrobe. He INSISTS on wearing this thing every single day. I have gotten over my embarrassment of sending him to school in his new redneck-inspired ensembles, and have instead decided to embrace our hillbilly roots. I think I lost my right to engage in any elitist behavior right about the time my neighbor felt the need to rescue our child left unattended in a car in front of our house.

porter

porter