How quickly we forget...

It has been 4 weeks since I stopped working and I'm amazed at how quickly the realities of everyday life at home have pushed everything else out of my mind. Amazed, and a little discouraged if I'm honest. I love my children and still believe I made the right choice in staying home, but already miss the intellectual stimulation of work. I also miss feeling like I have something interesting to add to conversations. My current repertoire consists largely of statements like "stop touching your brother," "that is not a toy, put it down," and the ever popular "because I said so."

I am not in a funk, however, because I made, in retrospect, the brilliant decision to volunteer for an organization that works with charter schools in the city. They do great work and it will be a wonderful opportunity to stay intellectually engaged and hopefully also will prove a bonus on my resume when I do go back to teaching. I'm meeting with the head honcho in a couple of weeks so will have some idea of how I'll be helping out after that. The benefit of volunteer work is that people are only to happy to let you do all kinds of cool and intellectually-stimulating things as long as they don't have to pay you anything.

I'm also very lucky in that volunteering at my son's school is not, for me, a substitute for work but actually just another way to get an education fix. I met with the principal yesterday and she was pretty open to my helping out however I can. Time in the boys' classrooms and on field trips will be great, but I'm also hoping to help out with testing individual students and maybe even try to organize some time with small groups of students, either for intensive support or enrichment. We'll see how much they let me get away with.

All of this means that I am able to recognize my current brain-as-mush state and not freak out too much since I look forward to a Fall full of opportunities to remember that I am, in fact, a reasonably intelligent person with skills and knowledge to offer to society. So let the summer of sloth continue.

Now, where did I put that murder mystery?

Why Geography Matters...

So Craig and I definitely knew that location was important when we were house hunting, we just didn't realize WHAT location was important. We were focused on things like metro access and parking or shopping and restaurants. Not bad things of course, but not what really matters. Apparently, what really matters when you have three boys is how close you are to a good hospital.

I know this now because I have spent much of this week in the ER at Children's National Medical Center, an excellent hospital just 5 minutes from our house. In fact, we can get there from home so quickly that the blood from a really bad gash doesn't even have time to soak through the bandage and make a mess in the car. Now that is the proximity that matters. After this week, I can also attest to the fact that their doctors are friendly and their technicians do a great job putting stitches in both 2 and 5 years olds. I'm sure that same skill will extend to dealing with broken bones and concussions when the time arises.

There are many things I love about my house and my neighborhood. If this week is anything to go by, however, it's the hospital that will keep me right where I am, at least until the boys are old enough to drive each other to the ER.

Dawn Breaks...

Having written a rather bleak post a few days ago, I thought I should follow up with more positive news.

In the grand tradition of it getting darkest before the dawn, CJ seems to have settled in to being home at last. He is now in his own room and it appears to have done the trick. He's slept 11 hours the last 2 nights, which is huge and bodes well for the future. His sleep schedule is the first thing that goes when he is spiraling and if we can correct that it generally signals we've broken the cycle. Even better, he actually went to the bathroom all by himself this morning. This marks the first time we have not cleaned up after him in several months and was a welcome relief for Craig and me, especially since his little brother is taking the final steps in potty training and doing double-duty was getting hard.

All this played out in our having a great weekend. We spent lots of time at the pool on Friday and Saturday, getting to relax and enjoy ourselves as a family. AJ had his promotion ceremony on Friday, which was wonderful. We got to see him waltz with his classmates, such a joy. Both boys started T-Ball on Saturday and had a blast and AJ also played in a soccer tournament and his team won. Today, Craig and I actually managed to get a lot done around the house and the boys entertained themselves for quite a while with only minimal conflict. Yay!

I'm sure there will be rough spots over the next couple of weeks, but those are manageable if they are not the norm, which is where we have been. His brothers managed to make it through the last couple of days without any major hits (although the bite mark on AJ's shoulder from last week will be around for a while) and also seem to be relaxing a little. Again, an important step since they also play a role in getting CJ riled up. My dad has offered to take CJ one day a week for some one-on-one time, a blessing since it will give CJ a break from the other boys and allow him to mellow out with one of his favorite people.

Craig and I both realize that we can't "fix" CJ, but we can, and do, work hard to create an environment that builds on his strengths and alleviates his areas of weakness. We're hopeful that we were closer to finishing the jigsaw puzzle than we realized.

If only I had the box top...

I'm sure a therapist would have a field day with the fact that my response to stressful situations is to start moving things around in my house. I mean, come on, feeling out of control so start exerting more control where you can? Even I can figure that one out. So it probably says something that I am currently in the middle of switching furniture around in not one, not two, but three rooms.

CJ has been home for three weeks now and it has not been a smooth re-entry. In fact, if we were a space shuttle, I'm pretty sure we'd have burned up by now. He's such a sweet kid, who throughout the day makes me want to pull all my hair out. He's escalating and today started striking out at his brothers. I know there is some way to fix this, but I can't seem to put all the pieces together in the right way.

I feel like I'm putting together a puzzle and I've lost the top that has the picture on it. I can tell it's supposed to be a calm beach scene but can't figure out how all the different parts go together and am just randomly trying each piece with all the others until I find a fit. The thing is, you know eventually you'll get there, but it is a long process and in a normal situation you'd probably give up about a third of the way through the puzzle.

This is not, however, a normal situation, so we keep trying. We're giving him his own room, hoping having some place to go and be on his own will help. I'll work harder at giving him a structured day, something that is a struggle with the rest of our life. I'll also reach out for other ideas and maybe we'll find something that will work.

I'd just settle for someone finding me the box top.

Just one of those days...

Yesterday was Craig's birthday and the boys and I had a big fest planned, including a dinner out that they had all been working really hard to earn (they had to show me I could trust their behavior in public after 5 pm and also eat a huge snack so hunger didn't interfere with said behavior maintenance). Craig and I are not that into birthdays, but the boys consider them sacred and wanted to do it up big. He had already gotten his present as I absconded with the boys on Sunday so he had a whole day to himself, which he used to go on a long bike ride and play soccer. That was not the same to the kids, however, since it did not involve cake, singing, cake, presents, and cake. One of the things about being a parent is that you find yourself doing things for yourself because of them.

Another thing about being a parent is that things rarely go the way you plan. Sure enough, in the middle of card creation I got a call from a friend in labor and was suddenly in charge of a fourth boy (age 2) as her husband rushed to the hospital to be with her. Not a problem, we got him integrated into the pack and made some changes (dinner out became pizza at home) and were actually doing all right until, right at bedtime, the man from Mid-Atlantic Waterproofing showed up.

Craig and I have determined that we can't put off dealing with our wet basement any longer. It is not good for the house or our health and so must change, however much it hurts to spend 10k on something that won't make a smidge of difference to our home's appearance. We've been collecting estimates and had already had Mid-Atlantic out once but they wanted to come back and try for the hard sell. Something we had completely forgotten in the chaos of the evening.

To recap: 6 and 5 year-olds upstairs trying to go to sleep, two 2 year-olds downstairs wanting to play and read books and have adult interaction, and one salesman in the dining room determined not to leave our house without our signature on the dotted line.

While not the birthday celebration anyone envisioned for Craig, it did fit our lives remarkably well.

Oh, little brother was born at 2 am and all are doing well. Craig and I did sign on the dotted line and our house should be significantly healthier in a few weeks. Birthday dinner will be combined with father's day.