This layout makes me happy

My son the middle manager

Mayhem is just full of ideas - ideas of things for other people to do. Most of Havoc & Mayhem's play is Mayhem directed, in theory. Havoc may come up with the idea - "Lets build a tent with blankets" but Mayhem quickly takes over with suggestions about which blankets, where to put them in the living room, how to arrange them and what toys to take into the tent. Havoc, like any good cubical worker, looks like he is listening and then goes and does what he was intending to do anyway & then explains away any discrepancies in the final project by persuading Mayhem they were actually his idea. So it works out.

Mayhem thinks I should be more of a traditional mom. I assume this from the projects he comes up with for me to do. He is full of ideas of what I should be baking. "You should make these muffins today Mama. Then these tomorrow and then these. Then maybe you can make these for when we go camping." Mayhem's favorite book is

500 Best Muffin Recipes

He pages through this thing every day and brings it to me with ideas. "These muffins look good, why you not make them? When we have these muffins for dinner?" He sounds just like my old boss bringing me articles from trade publications and asking me why we aren't using this software (um, because the company is too cheap to pay for it and the training necessary or better yet, it has NOTHING to do with my job). I wouldn't mind so much, but like managers who ask for reports and then never look at them, Mayhem rarely eats the muffins he asks me to make.

When he isn't bossing me around making helpful suggestions in the kitchen, he gets out his other favorite book

Amigurumi World: Seriously Cute Crochet

and suggests things I ought to be crocheting. He does play with the toys at least. I just finished this penguin at his request.

I'm working on an octopus for Havoc right now, then Mayhem thinks I should make the owl, then the dog, then maybe the monkey, then another dinosaur.

I'm not letting this kid know about my quilting books.

Who was I in High School?

SSD quiz for FOBTY

You Were the Arty Kid

Whether you were a drama freak or an emo poet, you definitely were expressive and unique. You're probably a little less weird these days - but even more talented!

Who Were You In High School?

But I really wasnt'. I'm not even sure what an emo poet is.

My American Accent

for SSD FOBTY challenge

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
Boston
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The Northeast
North Central
The South
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

A letter to my son

Sweetheart,

Today is your first day of kindergarten. You've been looking forward to it.  We met your teacher and saw your classroom 2 days ago. You told me she seemed nice and you couldn't wait to play with all the things in your class room. You were very excited about getting to ride on the bus this morning and when it finally came you climbed on with a quick goodbye and hardly a backward glance. My little man! So grown up already.

I'm glad you are so eager & so positive about this experience.  I want this to be a happy time,something you look back on with fondness, but being Mom, I worry. I'll always worry about you. That's my job.

Starting today you will now spend more time with others than you do with me and I worry. Will they be kind to you? Will they understand you? Will they patient? Will you make friends? Will they be good friends? What sort of friend will you be? Which of the myriad of influences you will be exposed to, will you pick up?   Have I taught you the interpersonal skills you need to make friends and to cope in strange & new situations?  Have I provided the best example of kindness, tolerance & understanding?

I want to be there to hold your hand as you walk to your classroom. I want to be a friendly & familiar face in new and unfamiliar environment. I want to help & encourage you when you meet your new classmates.  I want to assist you to interpret & filter the things being said & done around you. I want to hold you and never let you go. You are leaving me & going out into the world, which is what you are supposed to do & what I want you to do. But it is so hard letting go.

You are a sensitive soul. You want to help. You are good with smaller kids & assisting people who need it. But you are fragile sometimes. You can be hurt so easily by a mean word. You are strong and you are sure of yourself too, so the pain doesn't usually last long. You have it in you to be a leader & encourage others. You are smart & pick things up quickly. You are good & kind person. I am proud of you

I hope your teacher can help you learn to focus your energy on your classes. I hope she has better luck that I did. I hope you make good and lasting friends this year. I hope you become an even better person than you already are. I hope this year fulfills the expectations you have for it today.

I love you with all my heart

Mom

I've decided normal life begins again Monday

I had done fairly well at sticking to a routine through June & most of July. I went to the gym 3 days a week. I had meals planned for 2 weeks at a time. I kept on top of grocery needs, sales and coupons. We went to the library once a week, had a reading plan and kept track of our books. The boys had a nice routine of running around, imaginative play, swimming, Wii, and TV/DVD watching. We had playdates. We even had a weekly craft thing going.

It all went to hell in mid-July. The humidity here was outrageous, keeping the kids inside & pushing off swimming until after 4pm. Or it rained all day. Having them underfoot all the time is distracting & left me with no time to keep up on the grocery lists & coupons. It was too hot to want to cook anything so the meal planning went out the window.  My car a/c crapped out, and we don't have a garage, or anyplace continually shady to park a car. It was an oven. I didn't drive it anywhere I didn't have to go. Two weeks ago the library informed me I had 22 books checked out and I could have sworn it was only 9. The weather finally broke & it was comfortable. The kids could go outside again. Two days later Mayhem had his tonsils out and we have been housebound ever since.

Last night though Mayhem slept through the night, without once waking, screaming in pain. I'm going to optimistically take that to mean the worst of the healing process is over and perhaps we can now get back to some of our regular activities. Havoc starts school Wednesday and routine will be forced on us. I have decided that Sunday I will go through the freezer & the pantry & organize what I have. I will make lists of what I need. I will plan out meals - including Havoc's lunches.  Monday morning the boys and I will go to the gym and I will attend my much neglected Body Pump class. Assuming I can still move after it, we will go grocery shopping. I will make lunch. I will make dinner. I will go back to getting off the computer at 7pm every day.

Normal life - it starts Monday. So I should probably get the odd stuff out of the way this weekend.

Grease Quiz

For From our Blog 2 yours at SSD

You know the movie
You have correctly answered 9 of 15 questions.

Considering I haven't seen it in almost 20 years that isn't too bad

Mayhem has no tonsils

or adenoids either, though I would have been hard pressed to point out his adenoids in any circumstances. I know what tonsils are. Adenoids? Those are those things they usually take out with your tonsils, leading me to believe they are related somehow. I do know they are the part mostly likely responsible for his speech problem, but where exactly they are located I can't say.

It went really well & despite my fears I had no time to be afraid. We got there the requiste 2 hours early, so we could have an hour and 40 minutes to sit around and wait. I can only assume the 2 hour early rule is so the hospital can make sure you really don't eat anything for at least those 2 hours before surgery. They can tell you "no food for 8 hours and no liquids for 4" but I'm willing to bet people don't follow that & that can cause trouble. If they make you be there 2 hours early they can ensure that small food & drinkless window. 

Mayhem'd spent the trip to the hospital whining that he didn't want his tonsils out but the moment we arrived there, he led the way. He marched right up to the nurses station, chatted with them about his tonsils, asked them about their machines, and read the numbers on his blood pressure. He had apparently decided to have an outgoing day. They assigned us to a room we shared with another child who was just coming back from surgery when we arrived. He wasn't happy so we went to the play area.

They have a nice little play area in the pediatrics department & Mayhem was the only child in there the whole time we waited. We went in almost immediately after a little girl went for her surgery and a little boy came in right after we left, so I commend the hospital for their scheduling. Mayhem played with the trains and the big wheel and the bead tower and watched some fuzzy tv and was very well behaved.

He willing walked with me to the pre-op room, answered the nurses questions and asked some of his own. He only baulked when the OR door opened. "I not going in there!" he announced. They tried to interest him in the machines but he knew better. This was the serious room & he was not happy about it. He really didn't like the gas they gave him. He sat on my lap, spitting into the gas mask and saying "I not breathing! No big breaths!" He dropped off with a really annoyed look on his face. It was only as I put him on the table that the fear actually hit me. However the nurses, no doubt from long practice, immediately distracted me by telling me how to get to the waiting room and how to get to the cafeteria and there were so many lefts and rights and floor numbers to remember they completely overwhelmed the fear and it never came back.

The surgery went so fast DH & I barely had time to find the cafeteria, buy a couple hot dogs, find our way to the pediatric waiting room and eat the hot dogs before a nurse came in to tell us Mayhem was in recovery. It took less than 25 minutes & everything went fine. Apparently his tonsils were really huge.

He was cranky & groggy for about 30 minutes, after that you would never have known the kid had just had surgery. Granted he wasn't running around his hospital room & I had to lay in bed with him. But he talked as much as he usually does, he drank 3 glasses of icy juice and ate 3 popsicles and he played with the bedside tv. It was on this adjustable arm, bolted to the wall & he loved moving the tv around & up and down for optimum viewing pleasure. 

When the nurses said we could leave, he immediately asked "We go to far away Target now and get my toy?" (The 'far away' Target is on the way to the hospital, the 'close by' Target is in the opposite direction from our house.) We had asked the nurse to call the prescriptions in to the far away Target anyway, since it was on the way home & we aren't familiar enough with the area around the hospital to find any nearby drug store. So we went to the far away Target and Mayhem thoroughly explored the toy aisles before deciding on, (sigh) more plastic dinosaurs. We bought him a milkshake from the ice shop and got ourselves some Quiznos subs. He fell asleep on the way home & woke up briefly for storytime & another dose of meds.

Today has been a cranky, low energy day for him. Most of spent laying on the sofa. He's had some ice cream, a couple spoons of pudding, a piece of American cheese, maybe half a glass of juice and a couple glasses of vanilla Carnation Instant Breakfast. He says he wants mac & cheese for dinner. We'll see how that goes.  Havoc is going nuts because Mayhem won't play with him.  I'm hoping when DH get home he'll take havoc outside & run some that energy off. It's driving me bonkers.