POTY Time

I have received several inquiries from readers as to the outcome of the race on CloudEight for the coveted Parent of the Year (POTY) award, timely reminders that it is high time for our annual award ceremony. For newer readers, the POTY is an award bestowed each year in our house since we embarked on our childrearing adventures. For those of you keeping score at home, Deanna has won three of the previous five contests (with the help, I might add, of an “automatic” victory rule for the two years she actually gave birth – a rule I wisely never choose to argue with). I was able to bring home the hardware in 2004 and last year, in a surprise win, the award went to Suzy the nanny. Returning to the winner’s circle this year, for the fourth time in six years, is none other than our very own Deanna. The trophy this year, for those who are curious, is a model of a puking child fashioned from scraps of old soap.

While I was solid throughout the year, Deanna was, in a word (or non-word, depending on how hung up on proper grammar and English you are), solider. She also had some game-changing moments. Long-concerned about the twins’ nighttime reliance on pacifiers, for example, she decided one summer weekend that we needed to suck it up (pun-intended) and make them go cold poult. It worked, and their lips have not graced rubber since (random chewing on hot wheels tires notwithstanding). And, frankly, it wasn’t even the weekend long hysterical-cry-fest I had anticipated and dreaded.

A more telling example occurred in mid-summer: Owen was in the middle of a four week run of every day swim lessons when he was unexpectedly promoted from Level 1 (populated by those at risk of drowning in a ½ inch-deep puddle) to Level 2 (populated by those with a 50% chance of survival if tossed into two feet of water despite being almost four feet tall). He was upset at leaving his beloved teacher, Ms. Colleen, as well as his little compatriots down at the shallow end, and being made to engage in life-risking behaviors such as putting his face in the water. There was crying and uncooperative behavior.

The next day found him back at Level 1. His grandparents, who had dropped him off, witnessed some disturbing behavior during the lesson: a fairly obvious lack of effort in an attempt to stay at the relative safety of Level 1 (I was working on some good swimming stuff here using “dog(paddl)ing it” and “throwing in the towel” but have given up and am moving on). That night, Deanna and I, advised of this behavior, sat him down for a little heart to heart. Before I could even start, Deanna launched into a firm, persistent but caring monologue to him about our expectations of him and the fact that a lack of effort was unacceptable. Those words don’t due it justice really - she had just the right touch and you could see the lesson seeping into what sometimes seems like the impenetrable skull of our little five-year-old. It was just a damn fine bit of parenting, the likes of which one doesn’t see every day. I sat by amazed and largely silent (other than the occasional shout of “Amen” following particular good turns of phrase). Damned if he didn’t go out and nail the “Swimmer of the Day” award at class the very next day. And, as summer wound its way on, his swimming progressed by l(e)aps and bounds. Simply brilliant.

So how does one compete with masterful parenting flourishes like that? There were really only two chances for me at that point. One was to single-handedly potty-train the twins. While I did actually focus on this for awhile, they seemed only vaguely interested, and in the end they simply weren’t ready.

The second was for Deanna to falter - to fall off the beam, to put it into Olympic terms in what was an Olympic year – but who wants to win like that in a parenting competition. While Deanna generously tried to give me a fighting chance by dropping Cooper on his head several days before the end of the year, a fact appreciated by me if not by Cooper, it was simply too little, too late.

So, while our annual POTY competition here on CloudEight is fierce, and the kids always willing to present new and exciting challenges to our parenting abilities, I, for one, am proud to be co-parenting with our household's four-time champion. Winter hats off to you, Sunny D! And now, on to this years competition...

Hot Time in Chicago - That Toddler Town

Deanna and Owen are thawing out in Florida for a few days with her parents, leaving the twins and I to fend for ourselves in this subzero meat locker of a city we call home.

While others may have seen this as unfair or depressing, the twins saw it simply as an opportunity to host that all night "Go Fish" party and tournament they are always scheming to have but that Deanna would never let them do, what with their 8 p.m. bedtimes and all. I can be a bit of a soft touch, and soon enough on Saturday afternoon both boys were making some calls to their little friends on their plastic Mickey Mouse cellphones and sending text messages that to me all looked like "psihPPP7&^$plmmmmm," but which is apparently toddler for "game on" as it was not long before a rowdy bunch of two-somethings was gathered in the basement. The buy-in was sixteen cheerios, a wheel from a hot wheels car, and "something shiny." Beverages of choice were non-alcoholic jello shots and whole milk shooters.

A couple of hours in, hunger descended on the crowd, the plastic cellphones came out again, and next thing I knew, a delivery guy was at the door with the entire contents of the kids menu from the local Mexican place. Not too much later, a fight broke out - there was pushing and nonsensical yelling ("Bubblebutt!" "Bad boy!" "No you bad boy!") - followed by all of the participants and non-participants converging on me for a mass tattle. Having dispensed some of my judge-like justice in the form of timeouts for the main offenders, I returned upstairs to find some female toddlers had arrived - those damn plastic cellphones again, how the hell were they doing this?!? As the responsible parent present, I was initially concerned that a game of strip "Old Maid" might be in the offing, but was comforted by the fact that none of the attendees possessed the manually dexterity to actually remove all of their own clothes.

Instead, it turned into a crazy toddler rave, with some three year old kid wearing sunglasses spinning Ralph's World and Dan Zanes tunes until the pacifier-sucking crowd on the floor was worked up into a well-past-bedtime frenzy. The endless loop of Baby Einstein, Teletubbies and BooBah videos running on the large screen TV in the background lent the scene a surreal quality. As the only adult present, I was for all intents and purposes the bathroom as well, as most of our guests were not potty-trained. The line for diaper changes snaked around the corner into the hallway at times and there was loud complaining when we ran out of wipes. From there, the evening could only go one place: karaoke. Let me just say you haven't lived until you have heard a band of tone-deaf, sugared-up two-year-olds massacre the lyrics to Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and the Alphabet Song at 10:00 p.m. on a crazy Saturday night.

With the crowd collapsed into fits of giggles, I knew it was time to send everyone packing. I made a round of calls to what turned out to be largely surprised parents who had assumed their little bundles of joy were tucked safely in their cribs. By 11 p.m. - the toddler definition of staying up all nite by the way - I had cleared the house of all but my two little troublemakers. After confiscating the plastic phones - as well as the plastic keys to their Step 2 foot-powered cars, just to be on the safe side - it was off to bed for all of us.

Twenty four hours later, most of it spent cleaning up - I swear I will be finding half-filled sippy cups of congealed milk until Spring - I am still exhausted and just now finally able to muster the energy to write this.

Holiday Leftovers

Hope everyone had great holidays. Here are six snapshots of life on CloudEight in the weeks since I last posted. Cheers!

On Christmas morning, while waiting for the twins to wake up before going downstairs, Owen was excitedly reciting to Deanna and me a litany of items he expected to find that Santa had brought. Having spoken to Santa only hours earlier, I had some inside knowledge and was somewhat alarmed that Owen’s expectations far–exceeded what Santa had actually deposited downstairs. In an effort to manage the situation, I explained to Owen that it had been my experience as a child that Santa usually only brought one or two of the things I had asked for. Owen mulled this over for a moment, looked at me sympathetically and said “That’s too bad for you” before continuing on with his expansive list.

We have a crèche Advent Calendar - a magnetic manger scene that is empty on November 30 but gradually fills up during December as each day, another magnetic member of the manger scene is taken out of the numbered boxes surrounding the scene and added to the manger. Owen was super-excited about this from Day 1, although it probably seems to a kid in those interminable waiting weeks before Christmas that almost every box opened on the 1st through 18th is either a star or a sheep, with only the occasional shepard, cow or inn-keeper to break the monotony. Finally, in the last crazy pre-Christmas week, the big stars of the show like kings, Mary, Joseph, etc. finally appear in the mix. By December 23, the scene was complete except for Jesus, causing Owen to leap out of bed on Christmas Eve morning with the cheerily urgent statement: “I need to get Jesus out of his box."

Cooper sneezed in the car the other day, causing a flood of snot to accumulate on his upper lip. Owen watched Cooper using his tongue to lick off the snot and casually remarked: “Cooper is using my old trick.” Cooper enthusiastically disagreed, as did Hayden, leading to a spirited argument among the three as to who had actually originated the snot lip-licking trick. To accurately picture this scene, you should know that the twins debating skills are a bit rough yet, consisting mostly of loudly and frequently repeated shouted statements like "No, not you" accompanied by an emphatic arm gesture. Deanna’s frustrated contribution of “Do any of you actually believe you are the first kid to lick snot off of his lip?” only served to raise the intensity and volume level of the debate. Such, sadly, is the level of discourse in our house of small boys these days.

The most frequently heard Christmas greeting around our house this year was, of course, “Happy Birthday.” Sadly, the boys were not wishing Jesus a happy birthday, but instead took the line from Frosty, who enthusiastically and emphatically wishes himself a happy birthday each time the magic hat is placed on his head, causing him to come to life. An early season viewing and a couple of subsequent repeats of this holiday “classic” caused the twins to happily yell “Happy Birthday” periodically throughout the season whenever they felt filled with the Christmas spirit.

Deanna brought the boys by my workplace last week to check out my fancy new office. At one point, the twins were simultaneously engaged in some vigorous pounding on my computer keyboard. This seemed like harmless fun until I noticed that in their randomness they were causing various programs, functions and screens to manically appear and disappear. Since that time, my e-mails are all printing in a tiny, almost unreadable size font, a problem that has now stumped our tech person for a 3rd straight workday.

Last night, the boys and I had spinach salads with carrots and cherry tomatoes, and a chicken stir fry with lo mein noodles and vegetables and teriyaki sauce for dinner (kudos, by the way, to my in-laws for generously putting this meal together before leaving after a long day of babysitting. You guys rock!). Anyway, as I sat there watching all three boys cheerily eat it all – broccoli, mushrooms, water chestnuts, etc. - I was pretty proud. Two of them even asked for second helpings of spinach salad for God’s sake. Whether their good eating habits are the result of blind luck, a good example set by Owen (who has always been an unpicky eater), good and consistent parenting, or a combination of all three, I can’t say. What I do know, is that for all the unknowns and guesswork and randomness and uncertainty involved in raising kids - a project which you will not really know if you have done well at until years and years from now, if ever - this little tangible thing made me feel like we are doing at least something right. And yes, I do realize that by writing this, I have jinxed it and am now in for many years of picky eating.