Raising Cain (Or Buddy)

I've had a series of days lately where I've been on the verge of pulling my hair out by the end of the day. And when I say verge...

I can't quite articulate why Buddy drives me absolutely batty. He just does. He is such a wonderful person and most of the time he's just doing "normal" 4-year old behavior, but his "behavior" doesn't stop. His mouth runs ALL day long. You know, some kids will just be quiet or stop moving for a split second. He doesn't. I feel guilty about being soooooooo impatient, but honestly, I just don't have it in me sometimes. (Deep breath.) Since I can't quite explain how I'm feeling, let me just give you a snapshot of my week. It may not seem like much, but keep in mind these are a only *few* things that have kept me on my toes this week. And this week wasn't even as bad as LAST week.

• Buddy is having ear problems again. He has gone deaf again thanks to another double-ear infection. I'll save the details for another post, but it's a situation I've been agonizing over all week. Stay tuned for a discussion on medications.
• Last Sunday we were sitting waiting for sacrament meeting to begin and I realized I hadn't picked up a program at the door. I sent Buddy to the door to get one "from the man in the suit." Buddy loves a responsibility, so he happily ran to the door and snatched a program right out of the hand of the wrong man -- and ran quickly back to our pew. I cracked up, the family behind us cracked up, and the man stood there with a shocked look on his face but then carried on with the conversation he was having. It was obvious he was totally confused about why a punk kid would grab a program from his hand and run away. Too bad he didn't realize his mistake was that he wore a suit to church and had a program in his hand. No kidding, a lady from the ward called me last night to tell me that she witnessed that incident and laughed about it all week. I told her that if she thinks Buddy is so funny, maybe she can try parenting him.
• I've been fighting with Buddy for a few weeks now over him cleaning up his own room. He has been cleaning his own room since he was 2 years old. He knows where every toy goes and used to be so good about cleaning up when I ask him to. Not anymore. It'll take him literally hours to get it done now. And those hours include him doing a lot of fooling around, back-talking, disrespecting, slamming doors, and yelling. And me yelling, putting him in time out, begging, pleading, bribing, rewarding, threatening, guilting, yelling, yelling, yelling, and spanking. Imagine my joy when Elder Ballard asked the children of the church to listen to their parents and clean up their own rooms. (I'm positive I'm not the only mom that experience joy over that talk!) Buddy heard that talk and reacted well to it at first. Well, things took a turn for the worse the other day. He made a big mess in his room and I made him stay in there until it was clean. After a full eight hours in his playroom "cleaning," miraculously no toys had been put away. So we started from square one the next day. I was so annoyed and tried every motivation tactic I could think of. Eventually I got the bright idea to remind him of Elder Ballard's talk. I had previously told him how disappointed Jesus was, how disappointed I was... But then I told him Elder Ballard was so disappointed. I kid you not, within thirty minutes the room was totally spotless. He had spent about 20 hours fooling around in his room -- no exaggeration -- and that's what it took. I would publicly like to thank Elder Ballard for that wonderful talk.
• Buddy is obsessed with sea life, as I've mentioned before. Last night he prayed that he could "go in a cage in the ocean to see sharks" and that he could "see shark bites." Strange, but not too strange, considering how much he loves sharks and how carefully he studies the gruesome pictures of shark attacks in one of his shark books. Well, imagine my concern this morning when woke up and told me that he was in a shark attack last night. He carried on about the details, and then showed me the aftermath. Actual bite marks all over his hand and arm -- in the curious shape of his own mouth.

#1 Songs

Here is a cool website that I found that shows what the number one song was on any particular day.

Number One In History

Current Events

I love current events. I inherited that love from my parents. I am very pleased to announce that Buddy officially loves current events as well. He got an inkling he would love news magazines when he was a baby. He crawled for the first time toward a New.sweek magazine. (He *might* have been crawling toward it because he loved crinkling paper at that age but whatever. It was still a news magazine.)

Well, in the last week or so I've started to think Buddy sneaks out of bed and watches the 11:00 news with us from our bedroom doorway. I've never seen him do it, but after reading this blog let me know what you think.

So a few days ago Buddy started asking my mom and me if sea lions live in rivers. We told him repeatedly that they don't. I mean, we've seen them often at the coast, plus I know from reading Buddy's animal books that they live in polar areas too. I've never seen one in a river, especially around here. But then I remembered that the night before I watched a story on the news about pesky sea lions in the Columbia River who are eating protected salmon near the Bonneville Dam. There was a plan to kill the sea lions to preserve the endangered salmon. So after I stopped to think about it, I guess he was right. Sea lions DO live in rivers. At least for now they do, thanks to pressure from the Hu.mane Soci.ety.

So then a few days later Buddy started asking the Lord to help him "get salmon out of the ocean" every night in his prayers. G and I scratched our heads for a new nights wondering if anyone in the history of the world -- especially a 4-year old -- has ever prayed for that. But then we remembered that we had seen a story on news that the Chinook salmon fishing season had closed on the Oregon coast and that it would certainly hurt the Oregon economy, not to mention the individual livelihoods of many fisherman. So after I stopped to think about, Buddy probably wasn't the only person praying to catch salmon in the ocean.

In other news...

I am extremely distressed by the news that another Oregon foster child *may* be sent to live with "relatives" in Mexico. It's a very confusing story, but as an adoptive parent, I'm sick about it. In a nutshell: the child's parents are both in jail. The little girl is in foster care living with her father's parents. They love her and are working toward adopting her. Her mother has two other children with another man and that man's parents live in Mexico. Those two children may be sent to live with them and since the government agency* in Oregon believes siblings should stick together, they are considering sending this little girl along with those children to Mexico.

I can express how upsetting this is to me. First of all, she lives in a stable and happy home with two potential adoptive parents. Secondly, the siblings are only half siblings. They share the same mother, but not the same father. So the people she'd be sent to live with would not be blood relatives. (I have less of an issue with that, since in my opinion, blood doesn't mean a darn thing). But it's Mexico! Why would they uproot a two-year old to send her to a third-world country JUST so she can stick with her "siblings" who she hasn't ever lived with? Plus, this is the second foster child this year in Oregon who has been threatened to be sent to Mexico.

Since my son has a half "sibling" that lives not too far from us -- whom he has obviously never lived with -- I have a real issue with this. It disturbs me that the government agency considers blood siblings more important than stable and loving parents. I recognize that biological parents have rights -- as frustrating as that is for me (as an insider that knows WAY too much about abuse of those rights). But since when does the bond of a blood sibling trump all good sense? And my gosh... why don't children have rights?

*I've said this before on my blog, but if you have never had to deal with the extreme stress of adoption, please consider yourself lucky. My head is about to explode at times (read: today) with the frustrations of adoption -- both mine and some of my friends'. Thank goodness that with all that stress comes a great deal of joy. And if the stars align, our adoption will be final this week. And then I can feel a little safer venting about that government agency. And idiots involved with adoption/who say stupid things about adoption.

Life Lessons

SNL does a news segment called "Really? with Seth and Amy." I wish that I would have thought of that idea because it is hilarious. This post would be more appropriate for something like that, but instead I'll keep on ranting like I do.

Why do people still smoke? What is so fundamentally wrong with these people that somehow they can rationalize thinking that smoking is a good idea? In the last few days I have seen two examples that leave me scratching my head. The first was a bicyclist riding up a steep hill with a cigarette in his mouth. He was sucking that thing down and he was feverishly pedaling to make it to the top of the hill. Did this really seem like a good idea? The second was a girl walking up a hill. Same sort of scenario: legs pushing, arms pumping, and sucking down a cigarette while gasping for air.

These weren't even older people who could use the excuse that they have been smoking for years. These were young people, who somehow didn't get the news that smoking kills people.

Adventures in Toddlerville

Have I mentioned I don't have much of a life outside of toddlers? Although Buddy informed me he is NOT a toddler anymore. He's a big boy. But I digress...

If I've given you the impression that Buddy is the only funny kid in my life, think again. Between my own 4-year old, the class of 3- and 4-years olds I teach at church, all of Buddy's cool friends, and then the co-op preschool I help teach, I've got more blogging material than I could ever find the time to type up.

First, there was the boy in church who asked me if I've got a baby in my tummy. I assumed it was because he knew we just adopted Pee-Wee. No. He pointed at my tummy and said he asked because I am fat. Yep. That really happened.

And then the 5-minute conversation one day at preschool between the boys about pregnancy and naming babies because one of the kids' moms is pregnant. I stayed out of the conversation and just listened and about died laughing. They sounded EXACTLY like if us moms had been sitting around shooting the breeze.

This next one happened awhile ago, but is so classic I have to include it. Back during Valentine's Day we made a list of things the kids "love" for a little book they made during preschool. Most of the boys said the obvious: pirates, treasures, dragons, their moms, etc. And if one mentioned one thing, then they all included it on their list. But Buddy's good friend Conner was rather unique. He said he loved "coloring with the color pink and sitting around."

Because I can't make a list like this and not include Buddy: He was sick for several Sundays in a row and missed a lot of church for awhile. After he finally returned, I asked him if his teachers missed him and were sorry he was sick so long. He said, "They said they missed me. And I told them I didn't come to church because I was at swimming lessons." I am so embarrassed. And I've got it on my list of things to do to let them know that we do still keep the sabbath day holy.

But this ones wins for now but I know it won't come across in text as hilarious as it did out loud. I told the kids at preschool that if they ask me for a snack during preschool, I won't give them one at all. They get so pre-occupied with the darn snack, they won't pay attention to preschool and it drives me nuts. (My kids at church do it too, but I don't feel like I can be that mean at church...) So the next time we had preschool Carson said in the sweetest and most polite voice ever, "Will you please not tell us not to ask to have a snack because it irritates me and gives me a headache." Sounded JUST like his mother who is SO nice.

Too bad Buddy sounds JUST like me when he yells at people all the time.