The land of nothing.

Jamie today asked me "You know what my least favorite thing is in the whole world?".   This is a loaded question because there are endless lists of things in the world that aren't to Jamie's satisfaction.  "Nothing."  He said. "Oh," I beamed "You like everything?"  (what a happy grateful boy, yay for all those talks we've had recently about selfishness)

"No.  You have nothing to eat!"
"You never feed me!"
"Whenever I ask what I can eat for a snack, you say 'nothing'."
"I hate 'nothing'!"

Oy vei.  Yes.  I can see those lessons are working well.   I really do feed my children, despite their constant complaints that I give them NOTHING.    Jamie and Charlie had eggs, sweet potato hash browns, bananas and sunflower butter for breakfast.  Slices of turkey, spinach, and chili pumpkin seeds for snacks. For lunch they had roasted carrot soup, homemade chicken nuggets, and sweet potato gnocchi with roasted red pepper bolognese sauce.  For dinner they had panang curry loaded with vegetables, served over cauliflower, with a big spring greens salad, and massive slices of watermelon. These are not starving children!  I'm about to go mad trying to feed them, and instill gratefulness into their ornery little souls. 


Robbie on the other hand, couldn't be more happy at this stage in his life.   When he was born, he was so good, so easy going.  Then that went out the window when he decided all baby gear were really torture devices handed down generation to generation from the Spanish inquisition.  Slap some primary colored paint on it and call it an exersaucer.   He was not to be fooled.   Most mornings you could find him hollering at the top of his lungs from the depths of his baby toys and bouncer, while I cooked his older brothers breakfast.  It's really rough being third born sometimes.   But now he's been released from prison, because he can crawl!  He circles around the kitchen island, emptying tupperware cupboards and ripping apart anything he can get his hands on.   I am thrilled.  He can empty all the drawers he wants, as long as he gives me two seconds to do math with Jamie.

The boys are fighting a lot lately.   It's tricky, because they're both at fault.  Jamie eggs Charlie on and on, until he pushes him just a little too far, and Charlie gets mad.  But Charlie can't just start crying.  No, he has to check and make sure I'm within eye and ear shot, and then he lets loose a bloodcurdling scream that would convince the worst hearing aids that someone was being murdered.   I come bounding to the rescue, breathing evil mommy fire in Jamie's direction, when Charlie wails "Jamie touched me on the elbow."  

So I got out a big basket of clean laundry and declared a new punishment.  Whenever Charlie screams, they both have to fold laundry.  So far it works like a charm.   After three or four bouts of laundry folding, I was sitting on the couch nursing the baby.   Jamie and Charlie were playing Jedi with their lightsabers and Charlie inevitably got whacked a little too hard, and started screeching at the top of his lungs... but only for a half second, before he threw a panicked look my way and clapped his hand over his mouth.  Jamie "kissed" the booboo and promised not to hit so hard.  Both of them were whispering and giving me worried looks.  I'm ok with this arrangement.  Anything that makes me the bad guy, and keeps them on the same team, growing closer to each other is fine by me. 

My goal for Mondays are: 

Complete all of Jamie's school assignments.
Cook healthful meals and keep the kitchen clean.
Prepare everything for Classical Conversations.
Have the house clean by the time Jim gets home.

I asked Jim to judge the result, and my skills ranked a 7.5 today.  School, food and CC got done (thank goodness).  Unfortunately, the house was only kinda clean, and the kitchen was a hazard zone... BUT I was madly cleaning it when Jim walked through the door, so hopefully that counted for some points.   I think I lost some points though, for being cranky.   Which is a bummer, because the whole point in crossing a million things off my to-do list, was so I could relax and enjoy a pleasant evening with my awesome husband and kids. 

Thankfully a kiss made everything better.