Don't let the costumes fool you. They're very scary children.
True story: After L put on his Joker costume I had to chastise him for misbehaving. Defiantly and straight-faced he peeped at me through his mask and replied, "Why sooo serioussss?"
Yep.
Happy Halloween, tricks. ;)
Randomly, as conversations frequently happen with my boys, my 6 year old dropped an interesting oh-by-the-way-this-happened-at-school-two-days-ago bomb on the way to soccer Saturday morning.
"My friend was getting beat up by this kid and I asked him if he was getting hurt and he said yes and I said what does the kid look like and I went and found the kid."
I turned down the radio the rest of the way.
Shit.
All three of my boys are trained in MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) a full three years; the six year old a first degree green belt. He's also Mr. Peacekeeper of the bunch but when he spars? I hold my breath. The kid is a powerhouse.
"You went and found him? Then what?"
"I found him and his friends hiding behind a wall. They started punching me."
I was clutching the steering wheel, scared to ask what happened next. We have made it very clear to the boys that they are not allowed to use their MMA training unless they need to defend themselves and – well – here we are, a situation where he had every right to defend himself.
"I blocked the punches."
"Did you punch them back?"
"No. Just used my MMA blocks."
Relief.
"So you didn't have to punch anyone?"
"Nah. Their punches weren't very good so I just blocked them until they got tired and then I got a teacher."
I sat back in my seat. I was impressed. At six years old, he had a) stuck up for someone getting hurt, b) utilized his MMA skills while maintaining the right amount of composure and restraint and c) made sure a teacher took control from there.
This is where I make my case for MMA. When I mention my boys (ages 5, 6 and 8) are MMA trained as well as nationally recognized and awarded, I hear everything from "Geez, what is that? Cockfighting for kids?" to "Oh you're raising little fighters, huh?"
No, actually.
I'm raising boys. Boys who participate, play and train in a number of sports – soccer, baseball, basketball and yes, MMA. Boys who are strictly disciplined at home and whose discipline continues at the MMA studio. Who are not allowed to abuse their training in any way. If they do use their skills in a way they shouldn't, they won't just answer to school officials and us as parents but to their sifus and senseis. They will lose their ranks and belts. They are taught respect and self control before they learn to throw a single punch and they're taught that throwing that punch is only done when it's necessary.
And sometimes, it is necessary.
My oldest spent three years being bullied to the point of complete misery and anxiety at his last school. So much so that it ended in both police and school board involvement at the end of last year and us moving schools. This, mind you, with the school having a supposed "zero tolerance" bullying stance.
Yet he never threw a single punch. He never defended himself.
I'll be honest. I wish he had. When your kid cries himself to sleep at night because the kids won't leave him alone and the school officials whose job it is to keep him safe refuse to, don't tell me you wouldn't want your son to fight back too.
This is the irony of the schools' no-bullying campaigns. Even when the schools enforce and provide consequences to the kids who are bullying (which his school didn't), rarely do they go beyond the write-ups and suspensions to actually get to the root of the problem and resolve why the event(s) even happened in the first place.
Maybe this is why the bullying never ends? Why it's being called an epidemic?
The schools have kids – even at the Kindergarten level – so scared about coming face-to-face with the principal over an altercation of any kind with another student that kids will let other kids bully them until they can't take it anymore.
If they tell on the kid? They're told not to be a tattletale.
If they stick up for themselves? They're given the same exact punishment as the kid who threw the first punch.
And the moment the bully's friends find out their buddy got "ratted out" well, forget it.
Don't get me started on the parents who refuse to believe their precious child could have ever done such a thing.
We will never encourage our kids to fight. Ever. But we will always make sure they know that they have the right to defend themselves if they have to. Because in all the anti-bullying campaigning, the school's are failing to teach our kids that they do not deserve to be pushed over, punched, jabbed, tripped, bitten, spit on and harassed by anyone. And if the schools won't remind my boys that they deserve to be treated better than that by other human beings, I will.
To my boys:
School is starting and I just want you to know that…
I love you.
You make me proud.
You are the funniest people I know.
And the bravest.
You are so smart.
Your hugs are amazing.
Your fist bumps are too.
You are great MMA fighters,
soccer, baseball and basketball players
but I am even more impressed by your kindness,
your thoughtfulness,
your generosity.
I am grateful for you every single day,
love you even when I'm mad
and miss you so much it hurts when you're not here.
I want you to always be you,
the people that you want to be,
the people that you are.
Because you?
You are amazing,
awesome,
the raddest.
Never let anyone tell you
or treat you
any differently.
You make me smile,
you make me laugh,
you make me cry,
you make me happy,
you make me.
YOU can do anything.
So do it.
Do everything.
Love,
Mom
THIS is what – or who, rather - I'll be spending nine hours with in the car today.
They? Are excited.
I? Am terrified.
You? Pray for me.
It's our favorite time of year: The Fair. Year round, the boys ask if it's fair time yet, how much longer until the fair, can you believe it's almost time to go to the fair?!
It's uncanny, really, being that I grew up going to this same fair, looking forward to it with the same eagerness and excitement. Now I see my boys traveling the same pathways, lining up at very same corndog vendors for hot dogs on sticks and lemonades and churros and greedily draining me of midway tickets… Life circles that way.
This year was the first year they entered handmade items and baked goods in the fair to be judged and while they placed first or second in everything they entered, all their baked goods (all 8?) took first place. Every single one. Apparently that 'baking gene' skipped a generation. L-Dub even took two "Best in Show" ribbons – for his strawberry jam and his pumpkin pie.
I couldn't be prouder.
But the best part: watching their faces as they experience the rides. Worth the cost of the midway tickets five times over.
'Scuse me while I put on my mommyblogger hat for a second with a quick little boastful post about my dudes of whom I frequently tweet and Facebook about their current four-day-a-week MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) dedication.
My older two boys are training for the Pankration National Championships at Randy Couture's gym in Las Vegas (just a little over a week to go) in addition to their normal training. Back in April, E-man did his first tournament at Camp Pendleton and won first place in his weight division… This will be L-Dub's first tournament.
I'm super proud of all these kids, not just my boys… and you can see why:
Last night you graduated preschool and today you turn five. But I'm certain this isn't possible because you're the baby; you're not supposed to grow up. Yet somehow, you're the oldest – at least you think you are – and definitely the most entitled, complete with an I Will Rule The World attitude that is both admirable and challenging. Someday, you will rule the world in a way only you can, but for now, you rule ours with your charm, wit and impeccable sense of timing.
I'm not certain where these five years have gone… I know the first two were not what I had hoped for either of us and this is why I love you extra hard and kiss more than you want and snuggle you every chance I get. You have taught me to appreciate every single moment of every single day. I am grateful for you in every way.
It is so easy to love you.
There are lots of things I love about you… your feisty attitude, how smart you are, your quick-witted remarks, your self-confidence, the way you still like me to hold you – sometimes, your odd sense of fashion, the way you can beat the levels of Angry Birds I cannot… the list goes on. But one of my most favorite things is the way you love music and immediately learn the words to every song I play in the car or in the house and then sing along way too loudly with me to our favorites.
Big T, here's to a very happy birthday to you – my now 5 year old (going on 15) – who is very much the glue in our family.
I love you dude.
*fist bump*
{Mom}
*Song: The White Buffalo's "Story"
I lost him for a little while. The boy who I suspected would forever sit in my lap, never grow too old to cuddle, always be the lovable, easy-go-lucky thoughtful kid of the bunch – he vanished very suddenly and all that was left was an angry, hateful child who screamed and threw punches and lunged and cried and cried and cried until he could not breathe where he once hugged and smiled and grabbed hold of your hand and laughed so hard he snorted while his nostrils flared.
He was gone.
For weeks – months – I tried to figure him out; this new kid who was not even recognizable as my own. I tried to comfort him. Talk to him. Reason with him. Tell him it was OK. I talked to friends. I talked to therapists. And finally, I sat beside him and cried with him; grieving for the loss of the boy I used to know, hysterical with guilt for having done this to him, sobbing desperately for the tears and tantrums to end.
What had I done?
Where had he gone?
Would I ever find him again?
Hours at a time would pass as he would grunt – not speak – demands that I couldn't possibly translate, tracing his fingernail along the linoleum spelling out his requests rather than speaking them.
"Are you sad?"
"You can tell me what's wrong."
"Is something making you mad?"
"Buddy, I'm sad too."
Eventually I just let him vent. This was his safe place to let go and while I wasn't sure how much of his 'letting go' I could take without completely breaking myself, it was all I could do; let him know I was listening, I was by his side, and I wasn't going to leave no matter what. So I cried with him.
There was no rhyme or reason to when small slivers of the boy I used to know slowly started surfacing again. He's still not the same kid and probably never will be. I don't know that I can forgive myself for that. But I will take whatever glimpses of the old him and grasp onto them and love the new him, even if he's a little less cuddly and trusting and innocent.
He and I have become pen pals recently. He's been learning to write full sentences using his sight words in school and in his typical over-achiever ways, practices extra at home by writing me letters every single night before bed and I write back, leaving him a note to wake up to in the morning. He loves waking up to these replies. But he has no idea what his notes mean to me. How much I look forward to them being delivered to my bedroom door with stifled giggles and the sounds of crinkled paper followed by running feet back to his bedroom. But more than the hilarious letters that I will cherish forever, these letters symbolize something more. It means he – the boy I used to know – is surfacing again. It means that despite his world being shaken so badly in the last year he is finally realizing that it's going to be okay. Different, but okay.
And I am finally realizing that he is going to be okay. Different, but okay.
"T, you can go sit with your mom," the teacher whispers to my four year old as I walk in the door, five minutes late to Mother's Day tea at Holy Rollin', having had to hurry back from dropping off my middle guy at his school.
"No. I don't want to sit with her."
There is a collective chuckle in the room. A crooked smile crosses my face as I internally process why he would rather sit alone on the busy blue carpet than sit with me like all the other kids have done with their mothers. I let it go. That's Big T. Always with a mind of his own, always doing what he wants, and besides, how uncool for a big boy to sit with his mom anyway?
It's craft time. T doesn't want to do the crafts with me. Ok, cranky. This is not my normally hyper, creative, clingy dude. He's supposed to make a bracelet for me. He rushes to complete the task dutifully and then doesn't want to let me wear it. "Please? I thought you made it for me?" He crosses his arms and shakes his head no, then starts to cry. Um… did he not get enough sleep last night?
The rest of the morning continues like this. Tears. Begging to go home before the brownies and strawberries and whipped cream and tea. He LOVES brownies and strawberries and whipped cream. When he's not crying he's working hard to keep from doing so and I'm counting the minutes until we're done with what was supposed to be a sweet little celebration for Mother's Day and I can finally take him home.
Not one single mother – of the twenty that are there – speak to me. I do not belong amonst them and on top of that my son is curled in my lap on cheap preschool carpet begging to get out of there. I sympathize. We limp through tea time. He eats two strawberries with tear-streaked cheeks and asks if we can go. Yes. YES. But not without his teacher taking a photo to capture this uncomfortable moment for my Mother's Day frame. Yes, please, let me remember this moment forever. In the frame he didn't want to make me.
T requests a salad for lunch and we drive to the restaurant quietly. He must be tired. He probably needs a nap. As I pull into a parking spot he finally speaks.
"You know why I'm so mad at you?"
Stunned silence. Wait. What? All that crying and begging to go home and crankiness is because my 4 year old is mad at me?
I turn back to look at him in his car seat, still buckled, car still running. "You're mad at me?" I ask incredulously.
"I'm so mad at you, mommy. You were late for Mother's Day tea." And he starts to cry all over again.
And I start to cry. I can't believe how bummed he is. How disappointed he is. How hurt he is.
I was five minutes late. I'm never late. I'm always ridiculously early and I'm certain my not being there right away left him feeling like I might not show. And I can't imagine how he must have felt thinking I wasn't coming back when I promised I would. I missed one of the three songs they sang and only because I was dropping off his brother at another school.
But it's not about missing the song or being late and while I am shaken and hurt to hear how upset he is by my tardy arrival, that this is what the whole morning had been about, I'm more frustrated that this is the mother I now am: The fifty percent mom.
I've never been 50 percent of anything. I don't do 50 percent. For better or worse, I give everything my all. And here I am, held prisoner by the court system to be no more than a 50 percent mom to my own children.
Going from being 100 percent mom – stay-at-home mom even – 100 percent of the time because that's all I've ever been and all I've ever been allowed to be, to having the family law court system tell me that I can only see my own kids 50 percent of the time on a schedule a judge declared 'fair' – complete with written scheduled phone calls on my non-custodial days between certain time frames – is devastating. Going from room parent and school volunteer to not being allowed on field trips because it isn't 'my day' with my kids is unjust. Having the kids on a day that is not, by court order, 'mine' being coined "babysitting" when I'm their mother, only getting them on every other holiday and their birthdays if, by chance, they fall on 'my day' and not 'his day' is just… wrong.
And on the days I'm lucky enough to be allowed to be their mom – those kids I gave birth to – because, you know, the court let's me be, I'm spread so thin that I'm not always able to be 100 percent of a parent to all of them. I find myself five minutes late to Mother's Day tea, being laughed at by a classroom full of mothers who are clearly better than me, and worst, left feeling like I've failed one of the three people who depend on me the most.
Well, fifty percent of the time.
I feel like I'm being robbed of my motherhood.
Trying to stop the tears streaming down my own cheeks, I picked up T out of his car seat, almost too big to carry, and reminded him, "Listen buddy. I'm sorry I was late. I promised I would be there and I was — it just took me a little longer than I expected. But I will always do my best to keep my promises to you. You know why? Because I love you. To the moon and back."
I can't have my boys 100 percent of the time but I love them all of the time and no one can take that from me so I remind them every chance I get and hope that it's enough.
Brace yourselves. I warn you because I was not warned and the news caught me off-guard, it taking me a full minute to catch my breath when L-Dub matter-of-factly announced at dinner tonight that the Salsa Making Beaver died today.
"He turned 100 and he died."
Sadness washed over me. "What? Huh? I just — How?"
He rolled his eyes at me like CHRIST WOMAN, MUST YOU GET ALL KLEENEX COMMERCIAL ON ME? and replied, "Don't worry, mom. Before he died he had a baby."
"Yeah." E-man chimed in. "Everyone knows that before a Salsa Making Beaver dies they have a live birth to replace themselves. His name is Billy."
"No. His name is Lucky!" L-Dub insisted.
"Well I have my own Salsa Making Beaver and his name is Billy. He lives with Jumping Steve under the slide."
My head ping-ponged back and forth between the two boys who were very adamant about the various creatures inhabiting our backyard, collaborating and almost always agreeing on their story.
I listened incredulously while eyeing the "Honesty Award" L-Dub brought home from school just recently, concluding that having read the dudes all of Shel Silverstein's books and a good percentage of Dr. Seuss' has allowed their minds to frequently venture into a world of anything and everything and how awesome it would be to visit that place of imagination without the constraints of adulthood.
"Do we even have room for all these animals?" I ask the boys, always one to damper the excitement with logistics.
"Uh, yeah. No problem." E-man sets me straight. "They've got, like, plenty of room."
The kids continue scarfing down their pizza like we had just talked about the weather, no big deal, why you frontin' lady? and just as I get up to clear the table, Big T yells after me. "Hey ma. Der was a fox on da playgwound at my school today."
I want to live in their world.
