Manners

I have tried hard to teach my son manners. He says please, thank you, excuse me, you're welcome, I'm sorry, "are you ok?", etc. Granted, he's just 2, so sometimes he doesn't know the appropriate way to behave in some situations. So what was Mrs. Nosy's excuse? We stopped by Tuesday Morning this evening to get a birthday present for a party we're going to on Sunday. We had spent the whole afternoon with friends downtown at the Children's Fountain and feeding the ducks. So I wanted this to be a quick stop. I already knew pretty much what I wanted to get. I loaded both kids into the stroller to make it as easy as possible. I had to strap Quinn down within the first five minutes because he was swinging and hanging on the handle of the stroller. Not only was he about to flip his sister over, if he broke our expensive stroller, I would take it out of his allowance until it's paid for. Anyway, we made it to the toy aisle with only mild annoyance (mine) and him saying "I have that?" about 19 times. We stopped at the puzzles and I flipped through them, looking for the perfect birthday present. Incidentally, I was also keeping my eyes open for something Quinn might like. But I wasn't going to get him anything after he started crying about the ABC puzzle. He wanted it bad. Don't think I'm a terrible, heartless mother who doesn't want her kid to learn his ABCs. He is OBSESSED with his letters. He knows them all, knows the sounds they make, can spell a few words, including his name, etc. He can sing about three versions of the alphabet song (current fave is Alphapig's from SuperWhy), and he can sing the alphabet by the sounds the letters make as fast as by the letters themselves. He owns about 25 alphabet books. And he is great at puzzles. I buy him puzzles all the time. But he's worked his way up to doing 48-piece puzzles. I was not about to buy him a 26-piece ABC puzzle that he could put together in about 4.8 seconds. Now, there was a "sweet" older lady there who stopped us and asked how old Maddie was. We chatted about the kids and her grandkids, and she talked to Quinn about being a big brother. He asked her if he could have the ABC puzzle. Stop here. Think. What would you do? Would you:
A) Say something like, "Oh honey, I'm sure you have lots of puzzles at home. You don't need a silly old ABC puzzle."
B) Segue. Say "Do you know your ABCs? Aren't you a smart boy."
C) Bend down and find a few ABC puzzles and say, "What about this one? I bet you could put this one together. What about these number puzzles? Your mom could get you one of these, too." Hand the ABC puzzle to Quinn and say, "That looks like a great puzzle." Walk away pleased with yourself for making the little crying boy happy.

Hmmm. I'll let you figure out which version we experienced. Sweet Granny screwed me bad. I waited until she walked away and then told Quinn we were not getting the ABC puzzle. I attempted to distract him with talk of other things and began moving quickly toward the cash registers. He began shrieking at top volume. I mean, screaming hysterically at the top of his lungs. I acted on my first instinct and clamped my hand over his mouth. Let me just say, that did not help. He screamed louder and I just tried to calm him down by whispering in his ear. He got better but it was still a good idea to move ourselves quickly to the front of the store. We checked out with very little fuss and only a little whimpering. But I will never forgive sweet Granny and I ask this of each of you. Please do not take sides with a child against his mother, ESPECIALLY if you are a complete stranger. It would have been bad enough if it were Quinn's grandmother doing it, but I just wanted to say "How DARE you?" This rule applies to those of you who want to give my child candy or snacks or anything of the sort. Asking Mom's permission after you offer something to a 2-year-old doesn't count as good manners. So say "please may I offer your child something you may not want him to have" BEFORE you say "would you like [fill in the blank]?" Thank you.

"You Make My Heart Super Happy"

For those of you who don't get the reference, the title of today's post is from Ni-Hao, Kai-lan," a Nick Jr. show about a little Chinese girl and her animal friends. Quinn has spent the last 30 minutes pointedly NOT finishing his milk or dinner but instead singing "Jesus Loves Me" at the top of his lungs and asking for more "Jesus songs." It made me think about all the things in my life right now that make my heart happy, even when so many things don't. I could complain about my husband having to work six long days a week and not being around much. I could complain about how hard it is to get all of my work done while taking care of two small kids. I could complain about the fact that Quinn has absolutely no interest whatsoever in potty training but insists on showing me his backside every time he goes to the bathroom. But you know what? When Maddie gives me a big silly grin for no reason at all or Quinn pats my hair and tells me he loves me, all of that fades away. The fact is Maddie is a great baby. She sleeps through the night already and is a pretty calm baby whenever we're out in public. Quinn is a great kid, too, despite his temper tantrums. He still takes a nap (about 2 hours) most days of the week. He goes to bed without a fight almost every single night. He usually eats his vegetables before anything else. He says things like "That's the rules!" and loves on his baby sister. Tonight he was "helping" me cut coupons when I came across an ad for Baskin Robbins. He said, "Ooh, cake! I love cake. Mama, you say, 'Me, too'." I laughed so hard! Because, really, I love cake more than probably any other person on earth. Especially ice cream cake. I wish I had some right now. There is some really good ice cream in the freezer, but it's Jalal's and I can't eat it. He would say it was okay, but really I would never hear the end of it. As a matter of fact, it's pretty much a lose-lose situation for me. If ice cream lasts more than a week or so without me eating it, he says, "I can't believe we still have ice cream." Anyway, my point is that my kids make my heart super happy. Anyone who meets them falls in love with them. Well, I'm going to try really hard to get to bed early tonight. I've been up long past midnight every night this week, and catching some show last night on the History Channel about aliens being responsible for inseminating Noah's mother and then wiping out the "inferior" humans with the flood made me realize that it's not worth staying up late! Weird. So, goodnight. Love, Us.

The Concept of Time

This afternoon, the clock struck 5:00.
Quinn: It's nine o'clock!
Me: No, it's five o'clock.
Quinn: Oh, it's seven o'clock.
Me: No, it's five o'clock.
Quinn: No, it's seven o'clock.
Me: Okay, it's seven o'clock.
Quinn: No, it's five o'clock.

That's just a day in the life of a mother of a 2-year-old. Oh, and don't buy into all that parenting advice that says to give them two choices to make them feel like they have control. When we give him a choice between, say, two pairs of pajamas or two kinds of fruit, he picks one. Then he changes his mind and picks the other, which I then give to him. At that point, he freaks out and wants both of them. Yeah, giving a little bit of control to a toddler is not necessarily a good thing.

Toddlers are also notoriously inconsistent. Most of my mom friends agree that all two-year-olds ought to be qualified as bipolar. They can turn from hysterically happy to spastically miserable in two seconds flat--for absolutely no reason at all. We took Quinn to the playground today. He was so excited to get out of the car and run up to the playground. He freezes at the blue bridge, which he insists on walking over first and last thing there. He then turns so sad and begs Jalal to pick him up. At the stinking playground!! Who does that? We have to manipulate, threaten, tease, and coddle him to get him to cheer up and play. Weirdo.

Speaking of inconsistent, Quinn has been eating lettuce lately like it's going out of style. I mean, one night I gave him a small bowl of lettuce with dinner, and he asked for seconds--and thirds, and fourths! He's eating salads every day, and he ate almost the whole bowl of lettuce last night as we were having tacos. Today at lunch, I made him a turkey sandwich and put some lettuce on it. He picked off the lettuce and ate the rest. I asked him if he was going to eat his lettuce. "No." "Why not?" I asked. "I don't like lettuce." Oh. Well, I should have figured that out I guess. Tried again with a salad at dinner. He picked out all the pieces of shredded carrot but did not eat the lettuce. Not a fluke. Oh, and another funny story. I made him his turkey sandwich and served him some peas and pasta. While I was making lunch for Jalal, I heard him say, "Mmm, turkey is good." "Oh, have you tried your sandwich?" "Nope!" Okay, then. It's really no wonder that I can't wait for bedtime every day. It takes a lot of energy to be Quinn's mama. Well, I have to go be Maddie's mama now. Love, Us.

Miscellaneous Life

So I am finally able to catch you all up on the comings, goings, and doings of the Halaby clan. It's been a while so I apologize if things are a little haphazard. Seems my editorial finesse is elsewhere, perhaps hiding behind the bags under my eyes. Lots of room there, ya know. I hope I'll make it up to you by sharing lots of pictures!

Last Saturday was a big day. Maddie turned six weeks old and Jalal and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. Since he had to work that night, we had to wait to actually celebrate until last night. We got a babysitter and went out to dinner. It was nice, especially the bottle of Cabernet. I haven't had a single drink in probably close to a year, so that was wonderful! I don't know if it was the wine or the relief from being out with my husband at dinner and not having to replace anyone's pacifier or ask for the 17th time if someone would please drink his milk. We really had a nice time, only we didn't have time to make it to a movie and we didn't know what else to do, so we just drove around a while and then came home early. We joked about getting a hotel room and just sleeping for a couple of hours, but it was cheaper to just go home and go to bed early. Hah! What a couple of dorks we are.

Maddie is smiling now, and it's adorable. She gives this big gummy grin and her dimple shows, and it just makes my heart melt. It's hard to catch on camera since it's just me trying to make her smile and take the picture at the same time, but here's what I've gotten so far.




Quinn is such a beast now. He has so much energy that he just literally runs around the house slamming into things at random. Whenever I get mad and fed up and tell him to stop doing something, he throws himself on the ground so hard that he ends up hurting himself. Does it make me a bad mom that I don't feel sorry for him one bit at that point?

Ok, to back up to what I've missed. We had our Easter Egg-stravaganza at the Bridge the week before Easter. Quinn had a blast, decorating cookies, coloring pictures, and finding eggs, of course. I love my church. We all feel so at home there. I have friends there who come up to me and say, "Quinn's a little stinky, so I'm going to take him to change him. Where is your diaper bag?" Isn't that crazy? It's amazing that it really doesn't take long to feel like they are family. My pastor's wife, Chris, is awesome. She works at her kids' school, so she had spring break last week. Midweek, she emailed me and emphatically insisted that I take her up on her offer to watch the kids while I go out and do something. I finally agreed and had almost two hours to run not-so-kid-friendly errands, like the Cartridge World, because of course I ran out of ink just as I received my first job after Maddie's birth. I also hit Hallmark because can you imagine me struggling with Maddie while Quinn ran up and down the aisles "reading" cards? Especially now that he knows some of them play music, I can't control him in there. Anyway, so Chris made it through most of his stack of puzzles while Maddie slept the whole time in her swing. It was so great of her to do that.






Speaking of puzzles, Quinn is amazing at them. He mastered his 12 and 20 piece puzzles months ago, but he would do them over and over again. When Trish came up for Maddie's birth, she brought this 48-piece construction scene puzzle from Melissa & Doug, a company I LOVE! I told her it was way too difficult. But it was just a few weeks later that I had to go out and find more of them because he was putting it together so well. I found two more just like it at Ross, a fish one and a dinosaur one. Here we are less than 5 weeks from his first attempt at the first one and now he can put them all together just about as quick as I can. It's crazy!!

We made it to the mall to visit the Easter bunny again this year. It started to look a little iffy with Quinn beginning a minor freak-out, and all I could think of was the Santa Claus fiasco last Christmas. I hate paying more than $20 to have pictures of my kid screaming on the lap of a stranger dressed up like a character. But when we told him he had to show his little sister how it's done and that he could ask the Easter bunny for a "special treat," he changed his tune. They turned out pretty cute. Here are the ones Jalal took.




Easter was really nice. We got a few pics of the kids all dressed up. Miss Maddie looked absolutely adorable in her Easter dress, and Quinn, of course, was quite the handsome little man. After church, we had a lovely traditional Easter dinner. For the first time since we met, Jalal made his mom's baked ham recipe, and I loved it! Those Hawaiians really know what they're doing with that ham and pineapple combo. Mmm mmm starts with M, as Quinn would say. Here are the little lovelies.






Somewhere in there in the last few weeks, we went to a circus in Spartanburg. To be honest, it was a little ghetto. Well, it was sort of half-ghetto/half-redneck. Hope I'm not offending anyone, but we were all abused by the urchins sitting behind and beside us. They were horrible. One little girl even reached over and grabbed a handful of our popcorn!! Seriously? Does anyone teach their children manners anymore? Do you think they have the decency to be ashamed? (The parents, I mean.) Anyway, Quinn had a good time, and he even rode an elephant. I think the next time we'll spend the extra money and go see Barnum and Bailey instead.




Well, I was flattered when I got an email from my contact at Cambria Press two weeks ago asking if I was ready to come back to work for them. I suppose that's a good sign, right? I just finished my first project for them, and wouldn't you know it was in Chinese. It was a good book, actually, but it was literally in Chinese. Well, some of it was. I have now done books that were partly written in Chinese, French, Herati (an Afghan dialect), and math. Yes, that's a language, and one I don't speak. But as stressful as it is watching the dishes and the laundry and the diapers pile up while I work frantically toward a deadline, I am so happy to have work. And I do like this job, so I am glad they like me, too.

Whew! That was a lot. I'm sure there is stuff I've missed, but it's probably minutiae. Like Quinn making Maddie scream when he throws her "teddy bear" (GloWorm) at her and hits her. Or how all of Maddie's pants are about 2 inches too big in the waist and fall off her. Or how we tried to take Quinn to a movie today to see "How to Train a Dragon." How even though we'd just eaten lunch, we had to feed Quinn peanut butter crackers, yogurt-covered raisins, Reese's Pieces, and a lollipop just to make it through the movie. (Don't judge us!) We also have had a couple of play dates with Maureen and Sarah and even met a couple of new moms. So we are making new friends, which is great. Oh, and whoever taught Quinn to say "are we there yet?" can bite me. Okay, time to go to bed. I'm exhausted! You probably are, too, after slogging through this post, which feels huge to me. That'll teach me to wait this long before writing! Love, Us.

Could I Possibly Be Doing Something Right?

It seems impossible, but our gradual weaning of parental presence at bedtime might have been successful. For three nights now, Quinn has not cried or gotten up after we closed the door at night. This is huge! It's taken us months to get to this point. Last night was not really a success story, however. Quinn did not nap yesterday, unless you count falling asleep in the car on the way to lunch. The decision to wake him up might have been a mistake. He started acting up pretty bad later in the evening, but we had agreed to go to a small group meeting with some people from our church at seven. So I finally decided to pop a couple Tylenol, force him into his socks and shoes, and throw him in the car with his blanket. After 20 minutes of "NO," he finally settled down and played with the other kids there. However, it was a pretty late night, and we didn't get out of there until almost 10 p.m. Of course, despite his rambunctious behavior at the Beattys' house, he passed out almost as soon as we got in the car.

It was no problem to get him changed and into bed without waking him. After a trip back downstairs to collect his "arsenal" of bed buddies, I thought the night was over. I was so wrong. An hour and a half later, Quinn wakes up screaming. I expected to find him banging on the door, or at least sitting up in bed. Instead, he was still lying down under the covers, with his eyes closed. Oh, and screaming. Did I mention that? Though I hadn't seen one before, I just knew this was a night terror. I've read about them because whenever I mention that he has been waking up crying at night, they say that it might be night terrors. Let me just say that you can wonder if you've experienced a night terror until you do, and then you know for a fact that that's what it is. I had read not to wake up a child having a night terror, so I just sat next to him, shushed him, and tried to comfort him quietly. He was tossing and turning, crying, and screaming "No" over and over. Break my heart! I managed to hold it together until he started screaming "Mama! Mama!" I started crying and talking to him, telling him I was there, everything was okay. Finally I ran downstairs and searched "night terrors" on the Internet. It said absolutely not to wake them, to not even talk to them or touch them. Just stay with them and make sure they don't hurt themselves. The article I read said they can take up to a half an hour to end, and Quinn's was pretty close to that. Finally, he settled down to a whimper and then fell back into a deep sleep. I was heart-broken listening to that and not being able to help. Evidently they are more common when kids are sleep-deprived, so I'm guessing the lack of nap combined with staying up late contributed. Hopefully that won't happen again. I don't know if I can take it! Well, it's late, and you've heard our drama for the past day or so. Let me just leave you with the news that Maddie is kicking up a storm and making me so happy every time I feel her. Can't wait to see her in next week's ultrasound. Love, Us.