One. Two. Three? Princesses

Posted on May 10, 2010 by Natalie

Digging around in my pictures I came across this set that I realized I never got around to blogging (big surprise). They were taken a couple of weeks back when Stella had Alex over for a sleepover (her first official non-family or babysitting-type sleepover, no less). The girls ended up tromping around the backyard in princess get-ups, and right on cue Porter rummaged around until he was able to dig out his most favoritest of all dress-up outfits: The Slip. Or as I like to refer to it, incriminating evidence for later use.

Happy 4th Birthday, Porter!

Posted on April 17, 2010 by Natalie

Hey Buddy,

Happy 4th Birthday! I am not even joking when I say that you being this big seemed like about 10 minutes ago. And all of a sudden we are here. At four.

This year spilleth over with awesomeness. And fun. And learning. And cuteness. And screaming. Still with the screaming. But I am getting ahead of myself…

Over the course of the past year, your father and I have compromised and caved and negotiated and just plain given in in ways we never thought was humanly possible. Why do I bring this up? Basically, I need to make clear that although well-meaning and chock full of effort, your father and I have done little more than provide gentle guidance and kept you away from sharp objects. And when it comes to your more major accomplishments of the past year, we are able to take credit for NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM. I can pretty much only lay claim to the fact that we kept you fed, clothed and periodically intervened to keep you from harming the occasional passers-by.

Let’s take for example potty training. As of this year, you are officially and completely D to the O to the N to the E. Done, baby. Why? Because one day you just woke up and decided as much. Period. End of story. Although I made a very conscious effort to not over-negotiate this issue, we reached a couple of stages where I REALLY wanted to help nudge things along. HAH. Double HAH! Will I ever learn? Probably not.

Academically, things are really starting to take off. You have begun the early stages of reading books, which generally consists of asking us to read you the same book about 57 times in a row, memorizing it, then read it to us as though you had just discovered sliced bread. I remember Stella doing this, and how exciting it was to see such a huge transitional step in both aptitude and interest. Along with the reading is also the writing. You still hold a pencil as though you are trying to strangle out it’s last breath, but you are able to form somewhat decipherable letters and have been doing some pretty impressive work with the stencil set at your school. (To clarify: the stencil that fits perfectly over an 8 1/2 X 11 page and not that ridiculous and confusing one that spilled over the edges of the paper – the one that drives you to waves of rage – what were those people thinking?) What is really starting to come into focus, however, is your firm grasp of numbers. You, are repeatedly holding up your fingers and counting different ways to add up various values. Last night you counted up three separate combinations adding up to the number 8. Whereas your sister is practically reading novels at age 6, you will no-doubt have mastered your times-tables by the time you reach Kindergarten.

Often times when I am trying to keep you occupied when we are out and about, or just at home and I need to keep you from climbing the walls, I’ll give you my little point-and-shoot camera and let you snap pictures to your heart’s content. It has even gotten to the point where whenever we go to a doctor’s office you immediately begin rummaging around in my purse so you can start taking pictures (see: Trigger Word discussion in upcoming paragraph). I finally downloaded a whole set of them and after some minor tweaking and editing I think you might be ready for your first gallery installation.

(click photo to see entire set)

Health-wise, we have had a pretty good run of it this year. Your ear tubes are almost completely out – one is out entirely, and the other we are trying to irrigate out with daily ear rinses of hydrogen peroxide. A ritual that is quickly losing it’s luster – no matter how many fanciful treats or outings I promise you. You are turning out to be insanely coordinated and quite a good dancer, I might add. I am still so completely amazed at how your body is growing into such a distinctively male physique. You have defined little arm muscles, a narrow waist, and one of the most adorably pinchable butts on the planet. I know, eww gross.

Moving on. Let’s talk a little about the Trigger Word, shall we? Myself, your father, the director of your pre-school and even your sister have become acutely fine-tuned to the land-mine we now refer to as The Trigger Word. The best way to sum this up is to say that our household lives as though we are trapped in an If You Give A Mouse A Cookie book. All we have to do is inadvertently utter one seemingly innocuous word or phrase and the next thing we know we have set in motion a chain of events that cannot be interrupted without risk of gallons of screaming. Everything in your brain has an association pattern: that certain kind of granola bar can only be eaten after you have carried it in that one backpack, or that pair of shorts can only be worn with that specific shirt and THEN you only wear THAT combination to school, but NEVER on NON-school days, and on and on and on it goes. There are rules and sequences and patterns and expectations that, coupled with iron-willed determination means that mentioning the Trigger Word is one of the highest offenses one can commit in this household.

Admittedly, I have spent countless opportunities whimpering about your intensity level always being cranked up to def-con bazillion, I am however starting to become more contemplative about your temperament and what it all means in the scope of my parenting world. Our mantra over the last year or so has been: Whatever It Takes. Basically, we spend a lot of time herding you through the emotional hurricane – just getting all of us to the other side, even if it means compromising beyond any reasonable expectation. Even Stella has realized the futility of trying to win on principle. And that is saying a lot.

More and more lately, however, we are trying to recognize those moments where we can take a stand, and hold you accountable for your own actions. But one of the biggest things we also have to do is figure out who you are. That might sound a little or even a lot strange, but really, the way I see it, toddlers are just cute little people with crazy suits on. Underneath all that crazy is you. So what we are trying to figure out is what part is the crazy suit and what part we are going to have to negotiate for the long haul. I have a feeling your intensity and drive are going to be something we will reckon with forever. But I have to wonder if some of this volatility will fall away over the course of time. Did I say wonder? I meant hope-and-pray-with-every-fiber-of-my-entire-being.

Because you know what Porter? You are awesome. And no matter how much I harp on The Angry, there is so much of The Cute that I can’t even begin to describe. This Cute of yours brings us joy and fun and silliness. And it is this counter-weight that keeps us all from the brink of insanity.

And if all that isn’t proof of how far we have come, this year you actually touched a horse! Voluntarily! Without Screaming! Score one for the P-Dog!

Happy Birthday Sweet Boy.
I love you,
Mom

Moving On

Posted on January 6, 2010 by Natalie

Okay, so lets be honest here. Who, in their right mind walks away from the November/December months riding on a blissful holiday high? That’s right. No one. I don’t care what kind of pious or abstinent life you lead, there is no way you can honestly look back at the previous two months and not want to be all, LATER DUDE! And its not even like I’m trying to get all Bah Humbug, and whine about the same inane things that everyone bemoans (I’m Broke! I’m Fat! I’m Hung Over!). I’m just sayin’. If the holidays ran year round we’d all be dead by the age of 7. (Throw in a couple holiday-adjacent birthdays and it automatically shortens to 5.)

This year was our rotation to host the holiday extravaganza, which meant it was up to us to make sure everyone was tended to and cared for so as to minimize the boredom, hurt feelings, foot pounding, over-stimulation and general dramatic flair. Oh, and make sure the kids were happy too. If I were to rank it on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being someone pitching the Christmas tree on the lawn in an egg-nog-fueled rage, and 10 being that we all shared in a group hug at the end, I’d say it was probably somewhere around 7 – being that no one cried in the presence of anyone else and everyone seems to still be on speaking terms with one another. I shall proclaim it victory.

It took a full-scale global recession for everyone to finally stick to their “we’re keeping it simple this year” proclamation, and although our kids were showered with gifts aplenty, we are – overall – getting much closer to a manageable scope of gift giving. At first glance, you probably wouldn’t have been able to tell, considering all 12 of us sat down to open gifts at the same time – then multiply that by 6 or so gifts per person, then multiply THAT by the fact that the kids had somewhat patiently waited all morning and until AFTER breakfast. If we had opted for the one-at-a-time gift opening method we would probably still be sitting there – and/or one of the kids may have exploded.

Somehow, we all managed to make it through.

(note: roughly 6 minutes, with audio)

Because we ~~are stupid~~ can’t leave well enough alone, we had decided to undertake the task of moving the kids into separate bedrooms the first week of December – unleashing a project I am certain will never actually end. Currently, there are clothes piled on the floor, and framed pictures stacked in corners of every room. Now has come the realization that we don’t have ANY decent furniture for Porter’s bedroom other than his bed a ~~giant toy pit~~ toy box. We have set up a makeshift card table and I bought a lamp to, you know, make it look respectable. Other than that we are on a quest for a bookshelf. And as per usual, based on our findings so far, we are about as likely to find one locally as we are to get Porter to deviate his wardrobe. (I’m pretty sure he is eligible to set a world record for wearing the same outfit for the most consecutive days in a row.) Thankfully, as we began the rearranging process we were able to convince him that we could throw away the last of the contents of the diaper shelf and have successfully entered into 2010 without a single Pull-Up of any kind. Boo. Yah.

We are all now back at work and school, and Stella is now officially a 1st grader. The realizations of this shift continue to reveal themselves to us: Homework is no longer an activity, but rather a requirement. She won’t have an official 1st grade school picture. We need to begin saving quarters to make-up for the year we just lost in saving tuition. It wasn’t until the last moment that I realized that I had to actually prepare for this as another 1st day of school exercise. Let’s just say it wasn’t quite as big a production as it was the first time around. I managed to get a couple of photos, but that was about it.

By this point you have probably figured out that we have basically rolled into this year with our usual pomp and circumstance. Nothing is dire, but nothing is dull. There is a term they use in the clinical world of doorknob touchers where they either refer to someone as neurotypical or non-neurotypical. As you can imagine, we utilize these adjectives quite often around these parts. As such, I think I am going to coin my own household term by saying that overall, this season was pretty much Walston-Typical®

September Roundup

Posted on September 26, 2009 by Natalie

»Soccer!

Stella’s 2009 soccer season began, and let’s just say that this season isn’t quite the same vibe as last year, but we are making the best of it. As is pretty typical for this age bracket, aimlessly wandering the field, kicking dirt at one another and picking up the ball and running off the field tend to be the predominant skill-set of the boys, and hogging the ball at all times is the predominant skill of the girls. Combine this with a coach that pretty much gave up after the first practice and you have an odd combination of girls actually trying to play soccer and boys either trailing behind them on the field or sitting on the sidelines refusing to play. As you will see from the photos, their uniforms make them look like a bunch of pylon cones running around on the field, but I think their ensembles will work to their advantage at their last game on Halloween day. When they solicited names for the team, Stella was the only one who would speak up, and thusly they became the Orange Tigers – even though my choice would have been the Cal-Transients. No such luck.

(click photo to see the entire set)

»Potty Training!

My son. Oh, my son. Oh, my 3-year-old-son. We are inching or should I say millimetering ourselves towards that champagne-popping moment when we realize that we have purchased or final package of Pull-Ups. Last check of my watch, it breaks down a little like this (be sure to get out your calculators): He now wears underwear about 96% of non-bedtime hours. His accident rate during these non-bedtime hours is about 2.5% (Yahoo!) HOWEVER, it is important for me to document that we have just this week started to abandon the practice wherein he would walk to the hall closet, grab himself a Pull-Up, take off his underwear, put on the Pull-Up, go in the spare bedroom and close the door so he could poop in privacy, then call to us to come change him. Yes, really. But to our delight, in the last week, he has voluntarily, and without any provocation begun using the toilet for all of his bodily needs – both at home and at school. No amount of bribery or cheering or threats made a single bit of difference. I am thinking of having a shirt made for myself that has the single word ‘Powerless Minion’ written across the front in neon lettering. Just so I can continue to remind myself of my current role in my sons life. As for the night-time routines, he is waking up dry about a 90% of the time. We still have no rhyme or reason as to when or why accidents will occur, so we still send him to bed in a Pull-Up – but I consider it a very tiny price to pay for being so very, very close to the end. This picture right here, is the view that I catch most often these days, and it instantly puts a smile on my face:

»School!

Stella’s transition to kindergarten has been far more traumatic on us than it has been on her. Helloooo, Walstons? Wake up and smell the rest of your life. thick weekly packets of paperwork to sort through? homework? baked goods? mandatory attendance? bus schedules? before-school care? after-school care? lunch money? school fundraisers? share days? library books? back to school night? new friend play-date requests? fall carnival? GAME. ON.

It’s not so much a complaint as a realization that our life is just continuing to bump up in these incremental steps and I had better not take my eye off the ball. Showing soon: extra-curriculars and bad hair days and all-night science fair project marathons. Overall, she is handling the transition with all the grace and awesomeness that I would expect. And to be perfectly honest, as I sit there on the front steps every day and see her come skipping off the bus with her pigtails and backpack I can hardly keep my heart from beating out of my chest.

»Haircuts!

Progress update on voluntary haircuts for Porter: Fair to Poor. Basically, whenever we have this conversation I just need to put on my new Powerless Minion t-shirt because that is about how successful those conversations go.

Oh, and Stella has decided to grow out her bangs. Someone kill me now.

»Rights of Passage!

I can’t remember exactly when Stella started asking about having her ears pierced, but from the moment she started toying with the idea I told her my position on the issue: “You are welcome to get your ears pierced any time after you turn 5. However, I am not going to suggest it, or try to convince you to do it. It is your decision, and as soon as you are ready I’ll be happy to take you. But you need to come to me. I am not coming to you.”

So, she thought about it, we had conversations about it, she talked to her friends about it, she talked to my friends about it, she talked to her Grandfather who suggested she bite on a piece of wood to tolerate the pain. Then, once she felt she had gathered and assessed sufficient information about the hurt-factor (her ultimate analysis: it only hurts for a teeny minute), she told me she was ready. I suggested we make a Girl’s Day of it and invite Doré along. Then, as we settled on a date, we realized my mom would be in town as well – girls it would be. We found a non-mall place that does the both-ears-at-the-same-time piercing procedure and headed out for our grand adventure. As we were sitting at lunch, I all of a sudden realized that of the thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment we own I had left the house without a single solitary method for capturing photos (at any given time I have at least 2, if not three cameras on my person). So, we hustled down to Longs to buy a disposable PRINT camera (I know!), and after a bunch of “Ugh! When are we going to be there!” comments from Stella we pull into the parking lot. It is at this point that she stops, looks at Doré and says, with a much more apprehensive tone “We’re here?”

Gulp.

She peruses the selection of earrings, settling on a sparkly pink/purple flower (which she will later tell me requires a whole new wardrobe so that everything will match them). The ladies at the salon are kind and enthusiastic without being overwhelming. Turns out, one of them is the aunt of one of Stella’s friends, which helps distract the conversation away from the real task at hand. They draw the small purple dots, and we all agree they are perfectly placed. Stella gives us the nod. She is ready. As they get into position, I can tell that Stella has rehearsed this a million times in her mind. Her main point of defense is to hold her breath. And so she does. In less than a second it is over and she doesn’t so much as flinch, then a gigantic smile spreads across her face as she is spun around in the chair to witness her beautiful new accessories.

(click photo to see the entire set)

»Diary of a Swine Flu Victim!

Friday: I get the suspiciously familiar feeling of a sore throat coming on. I switch from coffee to double quantities of decaf tea, and keep it on the DL.

Saturday: Not going away.

Sunday: Not going away.

Monday: Not going away. Drag my butt into work anyway – make concerted effort to stay holed up in my office. At home I all of a sudden start craving 7-up. Which can mean only one thing: Fever.

Tuesday: Stay home from work. Still hacking. Debilitating fever.

Wednesday: Stay home from work. Still hacking. Debilitating fever. Start wondering if I am going to die. Drag myself to the 1/2 hour Volunteer Orientation at Stella’s school (if I don’t attend I lose the opportunity to volunteer this entire school year). Sit by the door. Start seeing spots 25 minutes into the meeting. Make an early exit – but qualify as having attended. Barely survive the 4 minute drive home.

Thursday: Wake up without a fever! Stay home anyway. Strip the bed, wash the towels. Fever back by 9:am. Still. Hacking.

Friday: Reality finally begins to sink in what is going on. Vow to eat as much pork as possible to punish them for this awful virus. Still hacking. Still feverish. But somehow manage to convince myself that the fever is less bad than before. Obviously desperate.

Saturday: Wake up without a fever. Still hacking. Consuming massive quantities of cough meds. Take shower AND DRESS IN REAL CLOTHES! Still unable to leave the house. Still feel like I’ve been run over by a truck. Praying I get to go back to life on Monday. Praying my family – or anyone I know, for that matter – is spared from this.

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Category Archives: Milestones