Night Owl

My sweet Night Owl. I also thought this photo was appropriate to post given the new blog background!

Critters

I guess I’d better prepare to constantly have critters around the house, but I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it.

One of my earliest memories is my Dad bringing a garter snake into the house when I was about four years old. I recall my brother (five) and Dad thinking it was hilarious scaring my mom with the snake, but I distinctly remember being aware of my own feelings – fear, creepiness, and plain confusion as to why in the world anyone would pick up a snake, let alone bring one in the house.

Boys, boys. Just two days ago when we were moving out of the rental house, Cubby picked up a dead roach and was holding it in his hand. (It may have ended up in his mouth, had I not horrifyingly screamed and shaken it from his curious fingers.) Tigger and Tadpole are frequently trying to catch lizards, and the bug jar from Tadpole’s “Science Box” quite often has a multi-legged creature dizzily wandering in it.

I was immensely proud of myself for helping capture the baby frog that was hopping down our hallway after a Florida summer afternoon downpour a few weeks ago: a major milestone in my getting used to embracing ALL of God’s creation. I tried not to let my bug-happy kids see the fear in my eye – fear, I suppose, that the thing was going to pounce on me and start munching off my nose and ears.

All this was brought to my mind again when my eldest received to his extreme delight an Ant Farm for his fourth birthday. After all, who needs another truck or car when you can harvest your very own farm of insects in your home? I know the critters are contained, but truthfully, the very thought of purposefully having ants in my house is a bit, well, disconcerting. I don’t know much about Ant Farms, but they better not decide to cleverly tunnel out and make their Great Escape into my kitchen.

I dread the day that one of my own creepy-crawly obsessed boys picks up an oversized beetle or harmless snake and brings him in to the house to scare Mom.

I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

The One-Handed Mom

Back-to-back babies – especially with colicky ones – and the various stages of clinginess and separation anxiety that they’ve each gone through, leaves very little time when I am not holding or carrying around at least one of my offspring.

Which means that for the last four years I have basically been a one-handed mom.

Most new moms become pretty adept at doing a variety of things with one hand, and with four straight years of babies under my belt, I feel confident boasting that I am now practically an expert.

Washing dishes? Clean as the dishwashing machine would do. Whipping up a batch of homemade muffins? As appealing and tasty as the bakery’s. Cooking and setting the table for dinner? Done before you can say “Speedy Gonzalez.” Cleaning the toilets? You could eat off of them, I didn’t miss a speck of bacteria. Folding five loads of laundry? Neater than Martha Stewart could fold 'em.

Want me to help a kid on the potty, put on another’s pair of socks, change the third’s nappy, and pay bills online all while holding a two-month old? Not a problem. Because when you have babies, that’s what you do – you cuddle and calm your little guy in one arm and learn to do everything else with your one free hand.

And if you’re wondering, of COURSE I type this blog with one hand!

4,160

Was clipping Tigger's guitar player long fingernails today, when I realized: with four growing kids who need finger and toenail trims each week, I will be clipping 4,160 nails over the course of a year.

Something tells me, with the chaos and busyness in this house, I will barely spend that much time on my own personal grooming!

Weapons

If you are the proud parent of boys, it comes as no surprise to you that these cute creatures made of frogs and snails and puppy dog tails are also made of swords and guns and knife wielding fun.

So this blog is part vent and part to help my friends with girls to understand: with boys – it is absolute truth – that EVERYTHING can be a weapon.

Obviously, my boys love to engage in pirate play with their "soft" swords, and they love to karate chop each other with sticks. This doesn't surprise me; it does not take only a boy mind to use sticks and bats and other sword-shaped toys as, well, swords.

What never ceases to amaze me are the everyday household items that get repurposed as weapons. Popsicle sticks, crafty pipe cleaners, bubble-making wands – you name it.

Just a few days ago I watched as the boys whipped the flexible straws out of their chocolate soy milk and brandished them at each other with hearty "aaarrrrrrgh"s. Then Tadpole, very seriously and with significant big-brotherly concern in his voice, said "Mommy, Quatro doesn't have a sword [because, of course, my four week old is not yet drinking his beverages with a flexi straw]... we need to get him his own sword!" Sad. It starts sooo early.

And today, while eating a lunch creatively presented by Nana, the boys removed their ruffle-topped cocktail toothpicks out of hot dog chunks, only to start poking each other with them while .

Where, oh where, do they GET these ideas and tendency toward play fighting? They watch only carefully selected, non-combative TV programs and have spent very little time front of movies. Could all of this really stem from a half dozen viewings of the childhood favorite, Peter Pan?

The only explanation is that loud “weapon” play must truly be part of the genetic make-up of boys. And even though I grew up with a brother, I am not used to this kind of play. Oh, what fun I have in store for me.

dB

Decibel (dB): a unit used to express the intensity of a sound wave

Typical average decibel levels of some common sounds (courtesy of www.sfu.ca and -er- my own personal home decibel measurement kit):

Threshold of hearing: 0 dB
Rustling leaves: 20 dB
Quiet home: 40 dB
Normal conversation: 60 dB
One Rudlet home/awake: 70 dB
Loud singing: 75 dB
Motorcycle: 88 dB
Food blender: 90 dB
Two Rudlets home/awake: 92 dB
Inside a subway: 94 dB
Power mower: 107 dB
Three Rudlets home/awake: 115 dB
Chainsaw: 117 dB
Amplified rock and roll: 120 dB
All four Rudlets home/awake: 125 dB
Jet plane: 130 dB

The Last Firsts

Ah the joys of a newborn! I love those precious firsts – first time in his car seat, first neighborhood visitors, first time he shoots poo across the room while changing him in the middle of the night… precious they are, even though some (first time he leaves you with one cumulative hour of sleep the whole night!) may not seem so precious at the time.

In the whirlwind blur that is my mommy life, every day for the last four years has been full of firsts, and it is easy to forget them. I try to make notes in the journal that sits on my bedside table. As time goes on, finding those few moments to write becomes more challenging, the journal collects dust easier, and I as I drift off to sleep and realize I did not write today’s sweet firsts, I say a pleading, groggy prayer that I just “remember.”

This go ‘round is different, though: the last baby – the last firsts. I am trying to celebrate them and treasure them even more.

Because time is fleeting, my kids are growing quickly, and as a close friend of mine always reminds me, “this is the littlest your family will ever be.”

And THAT is precious.