James--I mean Jimmie Johnson--Says, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!"

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James--I mean Jimmie Johnson--Says, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!"

Date Created: Aug 16, 2007, 03:19 PM

I may have told too many people that turning four has been a real turning point in the boys' behavior. Or maybe I was right that it's a turning point, but a slight turn in the wrong direction. I don't know if it's just that we're all a little bit sick of each other with cabin fever and it being a heat index of 115 every day or if now that they are potty-trained they want to make sure I realize this does not mean my life is going to get any easier. I don't know. But they do not listen to one word I say. How many times can I say politely, "Please put on your shoes. Please put on your shoes. Please put on your shoes. Please put on your shoes," before I start screaming PLEASE PUT ON YOUR SHOES! PLEASE PUT ON YOUR SHOES! PLEASE PUT ON YOUR SHOES! PLEASE PUT ON YOUR SHOES?" It's the same with, "Please get in the car," "Please go to the potty," "Please go to the door," "Please come put your pajamas on," Please come brush your teeth." I am a grade-A nag right now. But only because they will not do one thing I say! I can't describe how frustrating it is. It's hard enough when all three listen and go through the long list of things we must do before we leave the house. Add people starting new games, looking for a toy, or just running the opposite direction from me and the clock ticks on farther and farther with less and less likely of us getting anywhere on time or on any kind of schedule. We've got to get better because soon (not soon enough) they will be starting school and we really will be on a schedule.

George and John just don't listen because they don't. When James doesn't listen it's because he purposely loves messing with me. I know I sometimes blame James unfairly, but sometimes when we're outside getting out of the car to come inside and I'm weighed down with grocery bags, it's a thousand degrees outside, I need to go to the bathroom, and it's already way past time for them to eat lunch I ask him to come on inside. He stands there and grins at me. Then I beg him please to come on. And he just grins until I finally go in without him because I have to go to the bathroom that bad. He does great at the potty, but one of the most critical potty times is right after lunch and before "quiet time". He is a man of routine, and this potty time is especially routine. AND YET, if I'm having a less than great day, after I say, "Time to get on the potty, James," he gives me one of those diabolical grins and then takes off and runs around and around the downstairs of the house. When I tuck him in for nap, following the exact routine he likes, as soon as I turn around he is out of his bed and pulling the shades up 1/2 a centimeter higher than where I'd put them. The other day my very dear very sweet friend went with us to Splash Zone at one of the county parks. James insisted he wanted to go down one of the waterslides all by himself, but then once we got up there and kids start lining up behind us, he's like "No way!" and so we turn to leave the line and he says, "Yes!" and then we get in place at the top of the slide and he screams, "No!" This is a great way to make friends at the waterslide. Last night I was dropping some food at a friend's house who just had twins. I thought the boys could ride with me to get some fresh air. I told them they didn't have to wear shoes because we weren't going inside, just dropping stuff off. Well, James can only find one shoe. And it's his fault because he was playing "peg-leg pirate." Anyway Will and I repeatedly told him he could wear just one or he could wear none, it didn't matter. But it mattered to him. I wish I could describe the way he screamed and flailed. If I had been a neighbor of ours who'd never had children, or maybe had but they were all sweet girls, and I heard James screaming like that, I would have thought he had just lost a finger or hand or leg or torso in a tragic lawnmower accident he was screaming so loud and in such a pained (for everyone) fashion. Finally I just had to leave without him and Will stayed home with him. UGH!

So George is pretty much all potty-trained, thanks to a lot of bribery. We were at Target last week and he saw this little Playmobil seal set that goes with the zoo he got for his birthday. Number 2 in the potty had been eluding him, so I told him if he pooped on the potty we could go back and get the seals. We got home, he sat on the potty and pooped! Only the poop was about the size of a pencil eraser. "I pooped, Momoe! It's a poop!" Yes, technically, but he really didn't fulfill the spirit of my bribe. So what to do? Give in and accept his technically sound sample, or insist that he grow up and poop like a man if he wanted the mother-and-baby seal set? I hemmed and hawed and put him down for a nap. He must have decided to forgo the gray areas of my parenting, thereby securing his prize without any asterisks. After nap he pooped a man poop in the potty. That night we went to Target and got the seals. No poopy accidents since.

The only downside to Georgie's potty habits is how often he goes. Yesterday in the grocery store I took everyone inside to the potty, then back out to the lobby to get the racecar cart, then back inside where we got halfway through my grocery list, only to get the panic look and crotch grab from George. I raced the racecar cart back to the front, pulled everyone out of it, rushed them all back into the bathroom, and let George go again. At the water park, he went to the potty, then we put on his dry clothes, then he had to go again, only we didn't make it to the potty in time and he wet his pants. He was completely undone. We ran into the bathroom, his arms flailing and he's crying and as he rounds the curve from the door, he slips on the wet floor and completely wipes out--face and body all over the floor. At home, he handles the frequency by using the little plastic potty. He drags it to his toys and sits on it while he puts together puzzles. He drags it in front of the TV. He drags it to the fireplace hearth where he sets up animal parades. I thought this was an okay solution until the potty started stinking out of pure over-use. We dump it every time it gets used and we clean it, of course, but imagine anything that gets dragged around all day getting T-T'd and pooped in. :( But yesterday I think we discovered an even worse hazard of the portable potty. John was running full-speed through the TV room and didn't see the potty between him and the steps and he tripped over it and it tipped over and dumped its recent contents all over the floor. NOT GOOD! And then the carpet cleaning spray stained the rug on top of that. Again, UGH!

In good news, I guess, they continue to grow smarter. They went on a boat ride the other day with Will's parents on a friend's boat, and when they got back, Will and I asked the boys lots of questions about their time. We weren't sure what kind of boat it was or if they went fast or what, so we tried to find out. Apparently there's a lot we don't know compared to George.

Will: What kind of boat was it, guys? Was the motor in the back on the outside or was it inside where you couldn't see it?

George: It was an outboard motor, Dad.

Even though there's been a icky hitting epidemic going around and they continue to fight over who's not sharing and what belongs to whom, they have been playing together a lot and really interacting. I had some cardboard boxes out and before I knew it they were using them as trucks and sleds and somehow this was related to their all being different monsters. There was a "sea monster" who was sometimes a "house monster", a "moon monster," and John was a "tow monster" (SNOW monster--he still can't pronounce "s" sounds for some reason). They also play store and animal doctors (all of George's animals get hit by cars). They also like to pretend trucks are crashing and their tires "go pop!" Why all these macabre thoughts I'm not sure. They have also been asking lots of heaven questions. They wanted to know where it was, a natural question, I think, but who is prepared to answer these questions? I don't know where Heaven is! But before Will and I could have a mini-conference on what information we should present to the boys, he blurted out the predictable "In the sky!" We were in the car and the boys immediately crooked their necks to get a look out the window. "No," Will said. "Really high. You can't see it." George said, "It's up North?"

Well, two of the guys are napping, I THINK. I know John is awake because he just got out of his room to go to the bathroom. He has a large stuffed horse that is about the size of a real Shetland pony. It stands up and everything. Anyway, he's taken to sleeping with it in his bed, and I don't know why this is any different in theory than taking a teddy bear, but for some reason him in bed with a large horse with rigor-mortis-straight legs sticking out and taking up most of the room is a bit disturbing. But John is his own weird little man. Lately he's eaten nothing besides Kashi Heart to Heart cereal ("heart cereal with nilk") except what bites of other things we make him eat to get more heart cereal. He still has his talisman "gub" (his cowboy glove--only one), his favorite pair of camouflage shorts that are too small, and his crocs that are also too small but which he doesn't want to replace.

I guess we all have our own little weirdnesses. I know I've got mine. Let's just hope the boys never turn tables on me and start writing their own blog...