Got ink?

Tulip discovered the sheet of sparkly temporary tattoos she got from Oma for Christmas.  We had forgot about them, but we found them, and they are sparkly so my, oh my, was this a treasure.

She put on one tattoo.  Then another.  Then another.  Then...we'll I'm sure you know how the story goes.

She showed me her tattoos:

She asked me if I wanted one.  I saw that some of the tattoos were a little, how should I say it, dark for a five year old.  I mean, there were sparkly red roses and then there was that rose with a dagger in it.  So I figured I would take the dark tats and let Tulip tattoo me with a stabbed rose and a spider.

(No picture of me in temporary tattoos - sorry to disappoint)

Twenty minutes later she showed me all her tattoos:

You'll see she still managed to find a heart not only on fire but also encased in barbed wire.  Oh, and a snake.  I guess that her new ink, along with that lavender t-shirt sporting a graphic of a girl riding her bicycle, pulls Tulip's new biker look together.

Good morning weekend style

On the weekends, the kids wake up before I do and find me in my bed.  They like to snuggle.  What really happens is this:

The snuggle causes some hair pulling.  Not tremendously painful for me, but it's hair pulling nonetheless.  I'd like to think we are spooning, but some little feet inevitably kick me in the crotch.  Or, two little feet knead my belly, alternately kicking me in the full bladder.  Sometimes I wonder if the toddler is actually trying to invent a new game called "Let's See If I Can Make Mama Wet Her Bed - Tee Hee."

Sometimes, to protect my bladder (which I suppose I could empty if I actually got up out of bed but until 4 minutes ago I was sound asleep and happy with the state of my entire body), I flip over and turn my back to the child.  I need to do this more often than not with Tulip.  That girl is tons of pointy elbows and knees.  I get expertly jabbed in the spine and neck vertebrae while simultaneously kneed in the small of my back.  But at least I can continue to ignore my swelling bladder.  I cannot, however, ignore the bruise that is developing on my brow which is the cause of my momentary glance over the shoulder to say "good morning" only to receive a head butt.  A mistake, of course, but a head butt nonetheless.  Oh, and more hair pulling too.

If Wolfie is up first, he simply slithers in to bed next to me.  He has learned the art of snuggling.  This kid wants to snuggle.  And talk.  My bladder is spared but my groggy head has to wrap itself around this:
"Mama, if you ever want to distract a robot, all you have to do is ring a loud bell.  Or, if you need to wipe out an entire army of robot octopuses, you just have to turn on the siren of a fire truck."

Good morning.

If all three of them are awake at the same time, they battle for a coveted spot next to Mama.  Usually one of them has to lay directly on top of me.  Oh, isn't is sweet, the image of me enveloped in a blanket of my snuggling offspring?  It is, for about 20 seconds, but, they are awake and want to play which means they begin to flail around trying to tickle each other.  I get a knee in the bladder.  And an elbow in the chin.

This is attachment parenting, folks.  Jealous?

I shoo them out of the room.  I tell them to play for 5 minutes (because that is the maximum time they will leave me alone) so Mama can rest a bit more and then I'll get up and fix them breakfast .

So they scamper off to play with each other and I listen to them from my bed.

"I did it!  I really did it!" squeals Luna.  She's three so everything is awesome.
"Luna, that's so great," her sister says.  And she means it.  Tulip is just as awed and proud of her little sister's accomplishments lately as I am.  Especially how well she draws and colors.

Then, "Wow, guys, come look at the sky.  It's so beautiful."  And that's Tulip noticing the sunrise.

"Hey girls, do you want to play baby dragons?" Wolfie engages both of his baby sisters in a current favorite make-believe game.

So as I lay in bed and my body recuperates, my heart fills.  And even though it's only been 3 minutes and 30 seconds, I can ignore my bladder a little bit more.  I get up and go see my kids.

It's Saturday!

Why blog about it when the kids can just tell you what they are doing...

Wonder

It's the wonder of the season.  Or, it's the wonder of children.  Either way, my heart is full of wonder when I watch and listen to my children.

Luna asked me many, many questions about Santa on Christmas Eve.  She wanted to make sure she understood it all, I guess.  She thought he was invisible.  I said, "Santa is watching."  Her eyes filled with wonder.  "How?"

I told her that he was watching to make sure all the children were in bed.  For added measure I told her that if any children are awake or are sneaking around the house he would pass by that house.  Luna's eyes got even wider.  "Uh oh," she says.  And she meant it.  (Luna has been having trouble staying in bed lately - she sneaks around looking for me so she can have 3 or 4 more hugs or kisses.  I think she's just trying to smuggle those fairy cards.)

We traveled to Bloomington between Christmas and New Year's to visit friends.  While driving along the highway, Luna exclaims, "Mama, what is that?!"  It was a factory.  The sky was brilliant blue and very white smoke was billowing out of the factory chimney.  What we were actually looking at aside, the smoke cloud was beautiful.  In fact, the contrast of white against blue was quite magical.  I told Luna it was a factory.  Luna said matter-of-factly as if she had just learned one more secret of the world, "Yes, Mama.  That is a cloud making factory.  That factory is making clouds for the sky."  Who was I to argue that imagery?

Tulip got a guitar for Christmas and yesterday I heard her playing it in her room.  She had shut the door almost all the way and had put a Christmas music CD on her new boombox.  She was trying to strum along to "I Wish It Was Christmas Today".  There was just enough of a crack in the door for me to watch.  That was pretty awesome.

For the first time we told the kids they could stay up until midnight on New Year's Eve.  They were so excited.  We had a movie marathon.  They usually go to bed by 8:00 and when our second movie ended at 9:30, Gabe announced that we had enough time to watch two more movies.  You should have seen Wolfie's face.  His eyes got so wide and his grin just kept growing and growing and then it was a mad Saavedra sibling dash to the shelf of DVDs to pick out a new movie.

Finally, I read Wonder by R.J. Palacio.  Everyone should read this book.

Happy New Year to all of you!

Little things matter

I found out just last week that when Tulip's kindergarten class is lining up to go outside for recess, Wolfie's second grade class is lining up to come inside and she gives her brother a hug as they pass.

Maybe it's the only child in me, but it sure warmed my heart to know that my children have an opportunity to connect, no matter how briefly and coincidentally, with a sibling on a daily basis while at school.  What a sweet thing for that little girl of mine to look forward to each day.

Then there's this.  Yesterday I checked Wofie's assignment notebook like I do everyday but I noticed that he had written down the first and last name of a boy whose name I hadn't heard before.  At dinner, he told me that he made a new friend at school - guess who.  He told me that he was sitting next to a boy he didn't know at lunch and then the principal came by to chat with the kids.  She asked them what kind of video games they like and Wolfie and this boy both said Skylander.  So they started talking about Skylander all through lunch and out onto the playground where they played Skylander all during recess.  Wolfie told me at first he couldn't remember the boy's name but asked him on the bus what his name was and that's when he wrote it down.  At home Wolfie looked up his new friend in the school directory to make sure he was listed and we had his phone number.

I don't know if the principal planned to bring new friends together with her simple question, but that is the result of her attention and connection to her students.

It's those little things that matter so much in the big picture.

Birth control

Wolfie has two winter coats and he seems to be more fond of one of them.  I asked him if he thought he'd ever wear the other one or if we should get rid of it (which he knows to mean take it to Goodwill or to Once Upon a Child).

Wolfie said, "Well, maybe we should just hold onto it in case you have another little baby boy and then he can have it when he's bigger."

"Oh, Wolfie, I don't think we are having any more babies," I responded.

Then he asks, "Can a woman control whether or not she has a baby?"

Are you kidding me?  The boy has not asked where babies come from yet but he asks me about birth control?  And he really did emphasize the word control.

And all because I asked him about his spare coat.  Well, that'll teach me.

I yelled at by a grumpy lady

I took the kids to their school's holiday book fair at Barnes & Noble on Friday night.  I pulled the van into a rather tight spot, but that's the way it goes.  I opened the door on the passenger side for Tulip and Wolfie to exit.  They know to stay by the side of the van until I come around to their side.  In other words, stand there and don't run into the street.

I was getting Luna out of the driver's side and I could hear a person kind of hollering.  I assumed it was a mom barking orders at her own children as they traverse the busy parking lot.  When I rounded the back of the van, I saw a lady standing there between her car and my van and she said, I quote, "Move it already!  Get out of my way!  I have to get in my car!"

She was yelling at my kids.

So I said, "Hey, why are you yelling at my kids?"

She said, "They're in my way!"

I said, "Well you don't have to yell at them, grumpy lady."

Then she said as we were walking towards the store, "You didn't have to park so close to my car.  You didn't leave me any room..."

I thought, "I parked in the exact center of a pretty tight parking space.  Maybe you are the one who parked crooked..." but that was too many words so instead I said, "Why don't you cheer up a little."

I entered the store, to the aid of a very nice man who said, "Here, let me get the door for you," feeling rather proud of my choice of words in front of my children.  I used "grumpy" and "cheer up" when I could have very well used different sets of words.

But then...gasp...it hit me.  Did I just model very bad behavior?  Did I just show them how to talk back to someone?  I felt like I was defending them and letting them know that the grumpy lady should not have yelled at them like that but couldn't I have just quietly ushered them inside the bookstore and then told them?

So as I began to doubt my perfectness as a mother, I was reminded of a time my friends Jackie and Ann, Melinda and I were visiting.  Jackie and Ann had just recently adopted their 2 1/2 year old son.  Melinda was the experienced mother of the group with daughters age 6 and 8, and I had not begun having children yet.  Jackie and Ann were navigating the world of new motherhood and asked Melinda the rhetorical question, "As a mom, what do you do when some other child is behaving badly toward your own child?  Do you step in and discipline some other mother's child?  Do you wait for that child's mother to step in?"

These are tough questions no matter in what stage of mothering you are.  Melinda, the wise and wonderful, said, "No matter what, I am my child's advocate.  That's my job as a mom.  So if another person is causing some harm to my child, I step in.  Likewise if my child were behaving inappropriately toward another, I would step in."

Sage words, mama.

I decided that grumpy lady needed to be disciplined as she was in the wrong.  Also, it probably wouldn't hurt for her to know that she was acting grumpy.  I mean, really, "cheer up!" is the reminder we all could use during this festive holiday season.

What I'm hoping my children took from this interaction between their mama and a stranger is:
1.  Their mama loves them and will protect them from grumpy people
2.  NOT that the lesson is to talk back at someone, unless they deserve some redirection on behalf of protecting a beloved family member
3.  Most importantly, to have a sense of humor when faced with people like the random grumpy lady in the parking lot.