Inception, Geller Style

Right before I got married my sister Sam (a tween at the time), wrote me a letter:

I can't wait to be a bridesmaid at your wedding.
I have seen Titanic 20 times.
I love Leonardo DiCaprio.
Mum says his real name is Lenny Caper.
A caper is a fish.

I loved that letter. And now I have kids of my own, I truly appreciate the linear logic. I thought that was the first and last time that Lenny Caper would be mentioned in relation to any of my life's events. Until now. I recently saw the movie Inception. (Ok, I saw the first 20 minutes and then fell asleep, leaving M to watch the rest alone. But I haven't made it through an entire movie in about 10 years; put me on the couch in the dark and I pass out.) From those 20 minutes I gathered the movie had something to do with people who mess with other people's dreams. Ha! Mr. Caper -- you make another entrance into my life. And here's why:

For some reason, there aren't enough hours in the day in which my kids have the opportunity to bicker with each other. No, as of late, they work overtime and fight in their sleep.

Witness Efram -- who comes running into our room around 2 am screaming that Bennett has taken something from him, done something to him, said something about him.. it's hard to decipher at that hour. He's utterly convinced and ENRAGED, and each time it happens, it takes me a good 15 minutes to calm him down. I don't really put him back to sleep, because he is not really awake.. it all happens in some bizarro dream state.

Witness Francie -- who, while we were all piled into one hotel room in Portland, OR, starts yelling at Efram, who is asleep next to her in the bed. Again, it's hard to make out what she's saying, but we managed to make out that Efram had stolen one of the stuffed dogs she sleeps with. The dog is on the floor. I pick it up and give it to her, tuck her back into bed, but she's still moaning on about Efram. This goes on -- in patches -- for about 45 minutes.

As I spent the next 3 hours trying to fall back to sleep, I got to thinking whether I should, ala Inception, try to resolve all their sibling rivalry issues in their sleep. (I once saw a Flintstones episode in which Wilma tells Fred, in his sleep, that he needs to buy her more jewelry.) What if, next time one of them wakes up, I say things like: "That couldn't happen. Efram loves you,. He'd never do anything to hurt you. If you feel yourself getting mad at him, just jump up and down a few times. You'll feel much better" or "Bennett didn't take your football. He loves you. If you feel yourself getting mad at him, count to ten and you'll feel much better."

Granted it all sounds a little Manchurian Candidate... but what if I could program them in their sleep: You will only pee IN the toilet, not near it, not around it; You will learn to love all the clothes in your closet, and not just the pink items; You will never cry, fight, or puke on long car trips; You will spend school holidays peacefully playing chess with your brother; You will never throw a football in the dining room, inches from my china; You will never again take a permanent marker and draw all over your stomach so that weeks later the marks are still there like some virulent rash... I could go on and on, but you get the drift.

The possibilities are endless. Thanks, Lenny.

The Pacific NW: Happy moments

I need to remind myself how marvelous it is to run on a rare sunny day here. The lake is bright blue and the air is remarkable. I'm happy even though Bennett came home sick in the middle of the day when he couldn't be any less sicker. It's moments like these -- in the actual moment of making the "should I let him come home" decision -- that I try to define what kind of parent I want to be. I don't want to be the kind of parent who sends a kid back to class when he's just tired and needs to lie down on the couch without four siblings climbing all over him. On the other hand, I most certainly don't want to be the kind of parent who makes a habit of letting a very un-sick kid come home from school.

So, to walk the line between hard-ass and pushover, I say things like, "Let's not make a habit of this," or "Just this once." But really I might as well say nothing.. because those are the sort of statements that make me feel better, but have zero impact on a kid.

I'm home now with all five kids. The baby is asleep in a sling, and I can hear numbers one through four banging around in the boys' room upstairs. I have some decisions to make. I can:

a) go upstairs and micromanage: make sure everyone's playing nicely, and minimize the chances of a blowout.

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b) ignore them. cherish the relative quiet and let the pieces fall where they may.

I find myself in this situation quite often. I can't see them, but I can hear them... and while they're all getting along marvelously and famously, I know with an absolute certainty (history will back me up), that their unity is on the verge of coming to a big, fat screeching halt. But.. it's going to come to a halt with or without me. I never stop a fight. I only seem to make it worse. So, I inevitably decide to back off and let them do whatever it is they're going to do anyway. And enjoy the 5-6 minutes of peace and solitude (baby in sling aside).

The Orange Sweatshirt

While Bennett spends a good 20 minutes preening in the morning, and can't pass a mirror without drinking in a long, slow glance, Efram prefers to wear his shirts inside out and backwards. I used to attribute his overall wayward/homeless appearance to his spaciness -- convinced that because he likes to read while getting dressed in the morning, that he wasn't aware that the label of his shirt was under his chin, that his socks were inside out, or his shoes on the wrong feet.

Until the orange sweatshirt. Among many other items of hand-me-downs he inherited from Bennett, Efram received an orange hooded sweatshirt. It was mildly worn when he got it, but given his revolting sleeve-chewing habit, and an additional year or so of wear, the sweatshirt has gone from looking worn, in a cool sort of way, to looking grubby - full of tears, holes, smears and stains. So grubby that people began to comment on it. ("Hey somebody has to buy that kid some clothes!") But the boys loves that sweatshirt, so much so that he tells me so regularly: "I love you, daddy, the orange sweatshirt, and my siblings." (In order of importance, I'm sure.)

Guilt led me to Landsend.com, where I bought Efram something he rarely gets: new clothes. Please, don't pity him. As the second child, he's programmed to prefer clothes soft and worn-in from the minute he gets them.. and he often rejects any "new" items I procure on his behalf, complaining of scratchiness. So, I found the softest sweatshirts I could find, knowing he'd refuse them if they didn't feel as though someone else had slept in them for a year, and a week later they arrived. There were three of them (big sale).

Now there are none.

As spacey as he can be, Efram had managed to get through the year without losing clothes at school. But in the space of 10 days, all three sweatshirts have vanished into thin air, and come tomorrow, Efram will proudly march into school wearing his beloved orange sweatshirt.

Should I have known better? Should I have scoured the bins at Goodwill and found some hand me downs from another boy? Should I have left it alone, and let him gaily march around Seattle wearing the orange nastiness -- like the Von Trapp kids in curtains? Probably. It didn't kill Captain Von Trapp, and it wouldn't have killed me.

Home

We're home. Flight home seemed, and actually was, shorter. Fiona managed to hold it together... but all in all, travelling with a toddler is sheer hell. Woke up to the sun.. and it's been around all day. Can see Mt. Rainier from the house, and the lake is clear and bright blue. I'm incredibly thankful b/c if I'd come home to rain and gray skies, I wouldn't have gotten out of bed this morning.