Max and Third Are Heavy!

This post will have a slightly different tone than the rest of my posts on this blog. However, the incident I'm telling you about definitely contributed a grin to the awesomeness of my life. So I'm going to include it.

This summer my family did a lot of hiking. We love escaping the city and getting out into nature and we tried to do at least one hike per week. One of the hikes we did was a trail that followed a creek up to some hot springs. It was 2.5 miles in and we started a bit late so that we ended up hiking during our boys' nap time. JayJay is six and can handle missing a nap. Max is four and he thinks he can handle missing a nap, but when he does, the world better watch out.

My sister #4 and her boyfriend came with us. The hike in was very enjoyable. The terrain was mostly level and the scenery absolutely stunning. Parts of the trail were a bit nerve-racking because of sharp drop-offs where the creek was eroding bits of the trail away. I had to steer my Max around those bits when he was inclined to climb the piddly fences separating hikers from a fall or throw rocks off the edges. By the last quarter of the hike in, Max needed a lot of coaxing and some carrying to make it all the way to the hot springs.

When we arrived, we ate a picnic lunch, waded in the pools, and explored the trails and waterfalls surrounding the main spring. Remarkably, the algae that grew on the rocks in the water was naturally color-coded depending on the temperature of the water: gray for warm, black for hot, and red for scalding. Nature is so cool! And again, the area was gorgeous!

After exploring and wading for several hours, we decided we better head back down the trail so that we could get home and eat dinner at a decent hour. We persuaded the boys to put shoes and socks back on and start the hike. My man started off with JayJay and Max while I waited for Sis4 and her boyfriend who were delayed with getting their shoes and socks on and gathering their belongings.

Before they finished getting their things together, Max returned alone. Something had upset him and he didn't want to hike with daddy and JayJay. I knew we had a problem. He sat in the middle of the trail with his arms folded in a huff and a scowl on his face. When Sis4 and her boyfriend were ready to go, we had a difficult time convincing Max to come with us. We finally managed to get him on his feet and began to walk at a snail's pace. After going a few yards, Max would sit down and refuse to budge. Sometimes we could lure him to walk again. Sometimes I would carry him for a short distance, but it was difficult and exhausting because I already had Third on my back. He wanted me to carry him constantly, but I had to refuse. Sis4 and her boyfriend both offered to carry Max instead, but he spurned their help. Sometimes when he sat down in the middle of the trail, we just had to keep going until we rounded a bend and he couldn't see us anymore. Then, after a few minutes, he would decide that he didn't want to be alone and would follow along. Slowly. This went on until we just couldn't get him to move anymore. We hadn't made it very far on the trail. At all.

I decided that the best solution would be to take Third out of the backpack and have Sis4 carry him. Then I would put Max in the backpack and we would be able to hike at a decent pace. So we proceeded with this plan.

Unfortunately, neither boy agreed that this was the best idea. Max was adamant that he did not want to be carried in the backpack like a baby. Third was adamant that he did not want Sis4 to carry him. And they both objected loudly, bawling at the top of their lungs as if we were torturing them by cutting their sandwiches in the wrong shapes. But I didn't have any other way so I ignored their protests.

They bawled FOREVER! And the trail suddenly wasn't only 2.5 miles. It was 30 miles and we would never reach the end. We trudged along with two boys bawling and bawling and bawling. Every person that we passed looked at us sideways, trying to figure out what such horrible people had done to those poor, dear, sweet little children to make them so upset. We tried to distract them by pointing out flowers and plants and insects. We offered them sticks and rocks to carry or throw. Nothing worked. They cried and cried, not even the whimpering, quiet crying. They roared. FOREVER!!!

And Max was so heavy!

Eventually, Max cried himself to sleep, draped over my shoulder in a position that made me have to tilt my head at an awkward angle. Third, on the other hand, was determined to keep going. He wouldn't let Sis4 cradle him or lay him on her shoulder. He was stiff as a board and sobbing. Finally, I couldn't stand to have to the poor kid cry another minute, so I took him from Sis4 and carried him myself. But since Max was sleeping, we couldn't transfer him to someone else's back. I had to carry both kids. Third promptly fell asleep in my arms. (We discovered later that Third had a poopy diaper and bad diaper rash, but we couldn't smell it because of the sulfur smell from the hot springs, so I didn't know he needed changed.) So there I was, carrying two sleeping, heavy kids (an additional 65 pounds!), hiking a 2.5 mile trail. For a hardcore outdoor enthusiast, this would be no problem. But while I am fit, I am definitely not used to carrying that much weight. My man was far ahead with JayJay, unaware that I needed help, and I was scared to transfer Third back to Sis4 because I didn't want to wake him up and traumatize him even more.

I tried to endure. I don't know how far I walked that way. It felt like 30 miles. They were so heavy! I had no idea how much farther we had to go. My legs and arms burned. My shoulders and neck ached and I couldn't adjust the straps of the backpack to relieve the pressure. My once wonderful afternoon hike had become quite miserable.

Finally, I didn't feel like I could endure another minute. So I prayed.

"Heavenly Father, please bless me with the strength to bear this burden. Help me endure to the end...."

I didn't even get to finish my prayer.

Sis4 turned around and said, "Do you want me to take Third now?"

For a nanosecond, my pride demanded that I refuse. I wanted to be strong. I wanted to prove my awesomeness by carrying both kids the rest of the way. I wanted to be blessed with the strength to continue.

But then I realized that her offer to take Third was the answer to my prayer. I had asked for help and Heavenly Father immediately provided it! I could not refuse such an obvious blessing.

So I said, "Yes."

She came and we carefully transferred Third. Miraculously, he stayed asleep. But the answer to my prayer continued. Without even communicating with either of us, Sis4's boyfriend came and walked beside me so that he could hold onto the backpack and lift some of Max's weight off my shoulders.

I marveled at how cool Heavenly Father is and how cool it was that both Sis4 and her boyfriend were able to feel the promptings of the Spirit to help me when I desperately needed help, even though they didn't realize they were receiving promptings.

We finished the rest of the hike that way. It wasn't very much farther.  I probably could have made it without help, miserably. But Heavenly Father didn't want me to be miserable. He wanted me to be happy, so he provided the help I needed immediately when I asked for it. When we saw the end, I took Third from Sis4 so that my man would think I carried both kids the whole way and be impressed with my superpowers (That didn't work. "So? I do that all the time.").

Answers to prayers are so amazing and special. Sometimes, Heavenly Father will give us the strength to endure our trials to the end. Sometimes, he will remove the burden entirely. Sometimes, he will send people to help us bear the burden. No matter how the answer comes, Heavenly Father will always give us help when we ask for it!

Dream

I think raising three rambunctious boys is beginning to stress me out. Last night I dreamed that they got out of control and launched a rocket that hit the sun and changed the color of sunlight to a salmon pink. So I yelled at them, "You didn't just mess up a room! You ruined our ecosystem! You destroyed our whole freaking planet!!!"

Veterans Day and the Play-Doh Wars

JayJay came home on Veterans Day and announced that he had learned about the Play-Doh Wars in school.

Huh?

I attended first grade and I had no memory of learning about the Play-Doh Wars.  So it must be a more contemporary war that had occurred after my first grade year so long ago.  But I keep up on current events and still the name didn't ring a bell.

So I speculated on what he could possibly be talking about.  Perhaps they had modeled historic battles with Play-Doh.  Perhaps they had actually had a Play-Doh war at school that day, lobbing gobs of brightly colored clay at each other across protective desk barriers.

In the words of C. S. Lewis, "Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?"

I gave up trying to figure it out.  "What are the Play-Doh Wars?" I asked.

"They are in China," he said.  "My teacher showed us pictures of them."

Oooohhhh.  It clicked.  He was trying to say clay warriors.  He had learned about the Terracotta Army of the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang.

The Case of the Disappearing Band-Aids

This spring, JayJay learned how to boost himself into the large pine tree in our yard. His favorite thing now is to climb the tree. If I can't see him playing on the grass, I just have to look up to find him.

Of course, Max wanted to climb the tree too. But he couldn't get into the tree on his own. He pestered me for help, which I refused to give him in an effort to postpone his tree climbing until he obtained what I felt would be a more physically capable age. I explained that if he wanted to climb the tree, he had to be able to get in and out of it himself. He's only four and I hoped that he wouldn't figure it out until next summer. My hopes were dashed when he figured out how to get in and out of the tree on his own, only a few weeks later than JayJay. He grabs the lowest branch, which is over his head, and walks up the trunk until he can wrap his legs around the branch too, then wriggles until he is sitting upright. He is now in the tree just as much as JayJay. Sometimes he climbs so high he scares himself (and me), but that doesn't stop him from climbing so high. Max's physical abilities continue to amaze me. He runs faster and has more stamina than his six-year-old brother.

After one of Max's morning tree climbing episodes, he came into the house with a long, bleeding scratch across the palm of his hand. Since it was too long for a single band-aid, my man bandaged it with two, their edges overlapping slightly so they stuck together in one rectangle.

Later that afternoon, we took the family to play at a local park. JayJay, Max, and Third ran around on the playground equipment while I took the dog into the field so she could play too. My man supervised the boys. He has now named the playground "The Apparatus of Death" because of Third's tendency to repeatedly walk off the top platform, whether someone is there to catch him or not.

Pretty soon they needed a bathroom break. When Max came out of the bathroom, the two band-aids on his hand were gone. My man looked all over for those band-aids, not to put them back on, but because nothing is grosser than finding someone's dirty old band-aid where you are playing, or even worse, stuck to your shoe or something. No matter how hard he looked, my man could not find those band-aids anywhere. He gave up and we went about our day.

Hours later, we were getting our boys ready for bed. My man lifted up Third's shirt to undress him and put his pajamas on and made a startling discovery. There were the band-aids, perfectly taped to Third's tummy, as if purposefully placed there. We asked Max how they had gotten there. Here is his version of the story:

"Well, I needed to go to the baffroom. Water was going down in the toilet that was right there without a door and it would come back up and it would go in a flood. Ender went in it and I took him out of the baffroom and the band-aid fell off me and I thought they landed in the grass but they disappeared on Third's stomach."

So apparently, there was some sort of trouble with the urinal that made Max believe it was going to overflow so he grabbed Third and carried him out. When he carries Third, he has to wrap both arms around his waist and heave. So somehow the band-aids must have transferred to Third's tummy while Max was carrying him. When searching for the lost band-aids, my man never considered looking on the other children for them.

Married Life: Sharing Toothbrushes

While I was in the shower washing my hair, my man was brushing his teeth at the bathroom sink. He said, "Honey, if I accidentally used your toothbrush to brush my teeth, would you want me to tell you?"

Unable to see him and thinking that he must currently be using my toothbrush, I said, "Yes. Did you?" I figured I would just get a new toothbrush when I got out of the shower.

He sounded slightly sheepish when he answered. "Yes. Like a week and a half ago."

"WHAT? Why didn't you tell me?!"

"I was never, ever going to tell you," he confessed. "I didn't realize until I had finished. I rinsed it really, really good. REALLY good! I think it was dark."

Meanwhile, I am laughing and gagging in the shower. "Gross!"

After I got out of the shower, I stood at the sink, staring at my fouled toothbrush. A moment of hesitation later, I grabbed it and began brushing. What the heck? There was no point in getting a new toothbrush after a week and a half.

Condom Curiosity

My man was in the shower and I was lingering in bed, unwilling to admit that it was time to wake up and face the day.  Max came into my room and climbed into bed with me.  He snuggled for a very brief time and then sat up and started bouncing around.  In the process of being a hooligan, he knocked my man's pillows onto the floor and discovered a surprise hidden underneath them, a condom in a shiny gold wrapper where I had stashed it for later use.

Max picked it up.  "What's this, Mommy?"

"Oh, it's something of Daddy's," I answered.

"But what is it?" he insisted.

With an internal snicker, I said, "You can go ask him if you want."  I was very interested to see how my man would explain a condom to our four-year-old.

I listened intently as Max entered the bathroom and asked, "What's this, Daddy?" as he held up the condom in its golden wrapper.

My man's answer was as vague as mine and disappointed my desire for entertainment.  "That's Mommy's and Daddy's.  Give it to me."

"Ok," said Max.

He handed the condom to his dad and went about his business.  I assumed that was the end of the potentially awkward issue.

Many hours later, we had put the boys to bed for the night.  I was downstairs working on a query letter and synopsis for my novel.  Max came downstairs and moseyed about.

"What are you doing out of bed, Max?" I asked.

"Nuffing," he answered.  He sauntered over to the kitchen counter.

"Do I need to spank your bottom?"

"No."  He reached up and pulled a pair of scissors out of the pencil holder on the counter top.

"Get back to bed."

"Ok," he started sidling toward the stairs with the scissors hidden behind his back.

Because I wasn't really paying attention as I worked, I suddenly realized he was trying to sneak scissors up the stairs.  Visions of crooked haircuts, shredded blankets, and stabbed brothers immediately accosted me.  "Wait a second!  Put those back!"

"Fine," he sighed and put the scissors back in their container.

"Get to bed!"

He went.  I continued working.  Later, my man joined me to watch a show on my computer.  We were sitting together on the couch when we heard evidence of a little boy out of bed again.

"It's your turn," I said as I paused the show.  We take turns investigating the after-bedtime shenanigans of our hoodlums.

My man went upstairs.  He was gone for some time.  When he returned he had a handful of condoms and he said, "Max emptied the entire box of condoms.  One of them was opened.  There are pieces of wrapper all over their bedroom.  I couldn't find them all."

Max had somehow managed to rip one of the condom wrappers open and thoroughly explored the contents before my man caught him and confiscated it.  Max was quite disappointed.

We told the story to my family the next day and my younger brother clarified for us why Max wanted the scissors for the condom.  "He was trying to poke a hole in it.  He wants a little brother!"

Who Is Mommy's Boyfriend?

My man was away from home until late last night. He was chaperoning the Morp dance (a backwards prom where girls ask the boys out) at the high school. He woke up this morning with a headache.

"Were you drinking last night?" I teased.

"No!" he said.

"Well, what were you doing that made you hungover this morning?"

"I'm not hungover," he protested. "It's just a headache."

Later, while we were eating lunch with the kids, he reciprocated. "And what were you doing last night?" he asked in a tone that suggested I was being naughty while he was away.

"My boyfriend came over," I said archly.

"Your boyfriend?" said my man.

"Yeah," I said. "He got here about 11:15 and he stayed all night." That's about the time my man got home after the dance.

"He did?" JayJay asked, joining the conversation. "Where did he sleep?"

"In my bed," I answered.

"Then where did Daddy sleep?" JayJay asked.

I laughed. "JayJay, who is Mommy's boyfriend?"

He shrugged. "I don't know."

I gestured at my man with the fork in my hand.

"Daddy?" JayJay guessed.

I nodded. "Yep."

"Daddy is your boyfriend?" exclaimed Max with shock and excitement. "I didn't know that!"