Challenges

Boys love a challenge. This week we have discovered a new way of getting them to do things. Rather than the usual nagging " Max, please, I've been asking you for twenty minutes, please will you just get dressed" we have begun to set them challenges. "I bet you can't tidy that room up without using your hands". "Of course I can!" they answer and get straight to work! We have used it with all sorts of things this week..... getting dressed without falling off the table, making the beds with their teeth, brushing their teeth with their eyes shut, eating food or drink they don't like with their eyes shut, carrying things up the stairs using their elbows, clearing the table whilst hopping. There are endless possibilities and because boys absolutely love a challenge, it works!

Of course, it won't work forever and is just one of those things that you can only use for a certain amount of time until it stops working, but while it does work we may as well make good use of it! I have told a few of my friends who also have boys and they have tried it with success as well. It is amazing how boys seem to respond to a challenge. Max has even been asking me for one today! I can't possibly refuse when he is willing to do as he is told! If you have boys, try it out and let me know if it has worked for you.

Postscript....
In case any of you are worrying about our fish, the fish terrorist seems to have given up on the idea of killing them and has not plopped anything into the tank for a whole week! It might be early days, but I think the fish may be safe again.

Hamster

We had a ridiculously impulsive thought today. We were enjoying our local garden centre. Its lovely there. The fish section is very exciting, especially the Koi carp which bite fingers when they are put in the water. Apparently that is enjoyable. The pets section though was where we almost made our fatal mistake. Fatal in the truest sense. The boys were loving looking at the animals, and there were some very cute hamsters with their pouches full which was really attracting their attention. Jonah was pointing at them and laughing and shouting very excitedly in his own little language. So I made the suggestion 'why don't we get a hamster?'. They really were sweet. We discussed the merits for a good few minutes before we actually realised what we were doing.

Jonah + hamster. Not a good comination at all. When he works out how to open the cage ( which will happen quite quickly ) he will enjoy squishing it, throwing it, holding it by the tail and swinging around the room. A real live toy that moves and makes noise!! So, thankfully, we decided to wait a little while before getting any more pets. When I texted my friend and told her they were very cute, she replied saying 'so are kids when they are tiny and in a cage'. Point taken!

We can't even keep our fish alive at the moment with the small predator about. We did have a death this week. Our silver shark died, and was eaten by another fish. Far from being upset, Toby and Max were very excited that they could see it, half flesh, half spine with it's eyes popping out. They hovered around the tank for a while watching it being eaten and deciding who the murderer was. Eventually it all disappeared. Very very disgusting, but to a little boy it really was quite fascinating.

I hope that none of you are vegetarians. I should have put a warning at the top of the page. 'Some of the content may be upsetting or shocking'. In fact, living with a toddler should have the same warning....

Fish Tank Traumas

I have not updated for a while. I feel terribly guilty (along with all the other things I have to feel guilty about of course), but I just cannot get to the computer without my little (unhelpful) helper in tow. I am almost at the tearing my hair out point (if it was long enough to get a hold of, but thankfully it isn't) with my young padawan learner. At 16 months he is far more advanced (and I really am not bragging because it is NOT good in this instance), agile, knowledgeable, adventurous and downright defiant than his brothers were. This is not a good combination and results in me spending most of my day following him around saying no. Our house is as childproofed as it could possibly be, and yet he still finds ways around them.

The fish tank is a major source of stress for me. It is on a coffee table. Coffee tables and toddlers should never be in the same room together. Anyway, we cannot put it anywhere higher up because it is too heavy. It has a handy little flap on the top for feeding the fish. This handy flap can also be used for dropping in felt tip pens, dummies, remote controls, and tipping in a cup of orange juice. How the fish have survived this far I do not know. The big boys are great secret spies and do come and tell me the minute they see their brother doing something naughty, but it is usually too late by that point.

He has worked out how to bend his arm in the right way to get it past the cupboard locks in the kitchen, and now enjoys playing with dishwasher tablets and cheese graters. Very safe, I know. He has discovered that if you turn a basket upside down and put it by the hob, you can pull off the rings and they make a great noise. We have to keep all our kitchen chairs folded down because he climbs on the table and enjoys fallling off (one day, when he is a stuntman and earning lots of money I will have to take a percentage). The computer is another attraction. Only the monitor screen is left on the desk because he clicks on all sorts of things if he can get to the mouse, and he pulls keys off the keyboard. Usually, before he does something he knows he shouldn't do (and yes, he does know) he looks at me and gives me his most beautiful, winning smile than melts my heart. My heart is then melted just in time for him to achive his goal.

My boys seem to be getting progressively more adventurous and, in a word, naughty. It leaves me with chills when I think about what he will be like at 2 years old. I am only just recovering from Max's '2's which seemed to continue for quite a while past 2. Am I too soft on him? He is my baby and I know I treat him differently to the way I treated the others at his age. I don't think I baby him, but perhaps I do. Or maybe he is just an avid explorer and wants to know about the world. To be honest, I don't really care why he does it, I just want it to stop!! So, my updates may become a bit more infrequent while I am in this phase. It is no understatement when I say that I don't sit down all day, or that he is into 'everything'. Hopefully the fish will survive another day.

A very busy couple of weeks later we are now trying to de-toxify the boys from all the junk food they have had. A few weeks ago on the news I saw an item that said that there has been new research that says sugary foods and foods with e numbers don't actually make children hyper. How stupid, I thought, come to my house on a Friday (sweetie day) after tea and see if you think the bouncing, skidding, shouting, running and wrestling is hyper or not. Yes, my boys are particularly active anyway, but after some sweets they are unbearable. Anyway... I digress, I am now feeling guilty about all the food they have eaten and am trying to feed them fruit and vegetables intravenously in their sleep. We'll have to give it a few days to see if my plan works.

Christmas was very lovely. The build up was a bit too long though. On Christmas Eve we decided to take them all swimming to wear them out. We arrived at the swimming pool car park with very excited boys in the car, I switched off the engine and heard Jonah choking. I looked round just in time to see the sick shooting out from his mouth and covering everything in the car. Toby and Max were gagging in their car seats, and we were desperately trying to catch the sick in a blanket - the nearest thing that came to hand! For future reference, blankets are not good sick catchers. So, Jared had to take Toby and Max swimming on his own and I had to prevail myself of the services of Grandma and Grandad for an hour before picking them all back up again. The rest of the day dragged relentlessly and finally we got them into bed, and set up the Nintendo Wii so that we could have a go without them interfering!

Christmas day was it's usual self. I realised how selfish I feel on special days. Why should I have to do what my boys want me to do? I want to enjoy the day all for myself! I tried really hard to set the table up nicely and managed to protect it against Jonah's advances. (He now climbs on the table if there is a chair left out, and with a tablecloth on it is even more tempting.) We decided to eat when Jonah was having his nap because at least that meant we would be able to have a fairly peaceful meal without food being thrown around or very loud shouting for 'MORE'. We all sat down and the boys were being very complementary about my handiwork, 'Mum, this looks beautiful', and I was feeling very pleased with myself and ready to enjoy my meal. Then the cracker pulling started and it all went downhill. Jared pulled Max's cracker so hard that he pulled him off his chair and knocked over a glass of guinness all over my table! I was so cross. 'We may as well have gone to McDonalds', I shouted! Silly really. Why should I expect to have it all perfect when I have 3 boys who just want to enjoy the day?

This has now been far too long. Back to school next week. I'm looking forward to finally having some time to myself again, but I don't want to get back into the swing of everything again. Having a rest has been good for us all. (Except Jared who told me yesterday that he can't wait to go back to work for a rest!!) Happy New Year!

Phew!

And the term has ended. We can all breathe again without the pressure of school runs / lunchboxes /reading books / homework / washing uniform etc etc. More and more I am enjoying the school holidays. I honestly never thought the day would come. I used to hate them because my boys just used to fight and get bored and I dreaded not having any time to myself. Those of you who know me will know the foreboding feeling I used to have on the last day of term. Now it is just pure relief. Now that I have worked out why they fight and get bored, and I can do something about it, I enjoy them so much more. I love having my boys back and watching them relax into being themselves again. They are so pressured during term time. We all are. During the holidays we don't have to clock watch, and we actually have time to play with them.

These holidays are even better because it is Christmas and Jared is off work for the whole two weeks! We can have time to do family stuff all together, but we will also have the time to give individual attention to our boys. Having 3 children, we don't often get the chance to spend time alone with the boys but we are going to do this over the holidays because it is so important.

We're also looking forward to Christmas Day because we have bought the boys a Nintendo Wii. Well, actually, we haven't bought it with our own money. We have been saving for it as a family for a few months and whenever we have been given birthday or Christmas money we have put it in the 'Wii pot'. We have managed to save enough, but the boys don't know so it will be a big surprise for them! It has been so good for them to save for this because they have learnt the value of it, but also they have been learning about being patient and not having everything immediately. So often now children have things as soon as they want them and they never get the chance to learn to wait. As they have waited the excitement has built and they have really enjoyed seeing the cheques coming in and counting the money in the Wii pot. We have never had any kind of computer game/ console thing before. We haven't got a playstation or xbox, so it will be a new thing for us and I am really excited about it!

Have a very happy Christmas. You never know, we may have been good enough for Father Christmas to come!

Tis the season to be... hyper?!

Gosh, its been a long time since I udpated on here. Life has been very busy with christmas parties and nativities. I cannot wait until Friday when the boys finish school and we can all relax into the holidays.

So, as the title suggests, things have been rather exciting in our house. I can't work out whether it is because the boys are tired, or over -excited about Christmas having had so many lovely things to do in the run up to the end of term, or maybe just they have decided to be that way but they are incredibly hyper. It is becoming fairly unbearable. Toby, who is 7, does not seem to be able to a) keep still and b) stop talking. If he is not making noise from his mouth he is tapping, clicking or banging his feet on something. The sounds that are coming from his mouth are repetitious, alien like sounds which seem to make him jump up and down as he says them. Every time he tells me any kind of news from school he leaps about the room like a gazelle going up a mountain. I do keep asking him not to make so much noise, but I really don't think he knows he is doing it. I hope he calms down when term has ended because otherwise Imay resort to locking him in the garden for the holidays ( ... social workers, please note, this is a JOKE...).

Max seems to be slightly less hyper than Toby, but a thousand times more sensitive, bursting into floods of tears the second his scissors don't work or his pen lid gets stuck. He is very very tired, just completing his first term at school. He has also started having tantrums that would make a two year old proud. After school today he screamed, jumped up and down, threw things across the room, just because I refused to give him a chocolate. Life is hard when you are 4. He needs a break from school and the relentless structure and conformity that it brings for him.

Jonah just watches it all from the sidelines, making notes for future reference. The poor boy has alot of bad behaviour to copy, as well as the good (of course... I'll try not to be too negative, it is the season of good will after all).

Despite all the noise and chaos though, I am really looking forward to Christmas, and having my boys at home again. They do need a rest, and until Christmas Day actually comes, we will have the ultimate bribery to use when we tell them that Father Christmas won't come unless they are good!!

Daddy's home!

Hooray! We made it! A whole week without my fantastic, supportive husband who is at this very moment doing the ironing for me! It was a hard and very long week, but we all survived and the boys were generally well behaved.

We went to meet him at the airport. The boys had made a sign to hold up that said 'Best Dad in the World' and they stood there, holding the sign, waiting for their Daddy while lots of people walked past smiling at them as they read the sign. I felt quite proud of my boys, and had butterflies in my tum as I waited to see my best boy. As they saw him walking through they shouted, cheered and jumped up and down. It was as if the whole world had shrunk to just us, and it was so brilliant to see him again.

One thing I noticed though towards the end of the week was that they were becoming quite physical with me. Even Jonah was clambering on me more than usual. I think they were missing the rough and tumble that Jared gives them. This is not just a fun thing for Dads and boys to do, it seems to be a necessity. Not only does it provide bonding for them (yes, apparently rolling around the floor together with arms and legs flailing is a bonding activity....) but when done with Dad it helps them to learn self control in a safe way, and they get to let off steam at the same time. They get to be aggressive with someone who loves them and will help them to control themselves and not let it go too far. If they don't have the chance to do this, I think they will be aggressive with other people who probably won't appreciate it quite so much.

Of course this won't stop them fighting with one another.... unfortunately! They are just like little lion cubs who roll around together. If they could roll around with Dad all day, they probably would, but it seems to be very important that he gives this time to them at some point during the day.

I don't understand the need for it myself. As a mum, I don't like to see them behaving in a way where they might get hurt, and I try not to watch! If I was in the middle of the bundle I would probably just cry! Thankfully I don't have to understand it, I just have to let them get on with it and be there to pick up the pieces afterwards if I'm needed.