What We Say, What They Hear

Years ago, FAR SIDE cartoonist/genius Gary Larson drew a cartoon in which a man was talking to his dog Ginger about her habit of rifling through the garbage.  The cartoon was captioned, "What We Say To Dogs" and "What they hear."  The man went on about how Ginger had better not get into the garbage again, or else, but all the dog heard was, "Blah blah blah GINGER, blah blah blah GINGER."  (You'll find the cartoon here.) But you can already guess my point:  this is pretty much how six-year-olds hear their parents.

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The Holiday Cards Lie!

They keep coming: the holiday cards featuring happy, smiling, beaming even, faces of gorgeously perfect, attractive, seemingly well-adjusted kids and their apparently joyful parents.

I don't believe them, though.

What I believe is this: Every picture perfect holiday card family is only showing us PART of the story.

The only honest card we've gotten so far was from our friends Jenine and Bruce, who enclosed not one card, but two. The first featured the kids posing in front of a snow-flocked Christmas tree, looking angelic. But the second card, enclosed with the first, was captioned, "The Real Holiday Card," and it featured pictures of both boys sporting casts over various limbs, and the girl with a face almost completely covered in what I am optimistically hoping was chocolate.

This is the true picture of family life for most moments of the year for most of us.

Though I spent the better part of the afternoon and evening stuffing envelopes with a holiday card featuring OUR gorgeously perfect, attractive, seemingly well-adjusted kids and ourselves looking apparently joyful, I am admitting right here, for the record, that ninety-nine percent of the time, it just ain't so.

Even at the photo session during which the pictures were taken, Thing 1 was having none of posing for a nice photo, and it was nearly impossible to get a snap of him actually smiling. Though normally he's overly exuberant -- his nickname of late has been "Mr. Enthusiasm" -- the morning of the photo session, he was cranky from not having slept enough (his own fault, he refused to go to sleep the previous night) and therefore almost wholly non-cooperative. Thing 2 was more amenable, but even she had precious little patience with posing: "I already said 'cheese,'" she'd protest, then then head off in search of toys or a snack.

This Sunday was far more typical than what's represented on the holiday card: Thing 2 woke up howling and turned out to have not one, but two, ear infections (one in each ear). Late Blooming Mom caught Thing 2's cold (but thankfully, not the ear infections) and slept in on Sunday, then had a nap in the afternoon, leaving Late Blooming Dad forced to cope with both kids for far too long on his own. Everybody turned cranky by Sunday night, and Thing 1 capped it all off by refusing to go to sleep until nearly 11pm.

I can't help but imagine similar scenes occurring in the homes of these very same picture perfect families depicted on the holiday cards we've received. But I guess no one's in the mood to take pictures on those days.

I bet even the Von Trapps (of SOUND OF MUSIC fame) had moments when they couldn't stand each other. It wasn't all puppet shows and Edelweis at the Von Trapp Manor.

We'll still be sending out the card on which we look happy. And the truth is, for many, many moments during a typical day, we are. But there are plenty of moments when we are not the family on that holiday card. I guess no one wants to get a card that pictures Mr. and Mrs. Von Grumpenstein, and their Twins, Whiny/Needy and Hyper/Annoying. But I just want to go on record as admitting that such a picture would be equally true, indeed.

Not Exactly Kodak Moments

She's proud of herself that she wipes from front to back when she goes to the potty. She wants to show mommy how she does it. But when she finishes wiping, she sneezes ... and decides the toilet paper she's just wiped with, and hasn't yet flushed, makes a perfectly fine tissue with which to wipe her nose.

He's proud of himself that he can use the urinal at preschool. He wants to show mommy how he does it. He takes her into the bathroom there and whips it out ... neglecting to pull his underwear and pants out of range. He pees all over himself.

She learns about nail polish from a teacher at preschool and her new thing is getting her nails done, by mommy, nanny, the obliging babysitter. Not one to be left out, even though this is traditionally a girls' activity, he insists on getting his nails done too -- toenails included. The color he chooses? Black. My three-and-a-half-year-old son has unwittingly gone Goth.

We're rolling cookie dough into balls to make "thumbprint" cookies: the idea is to push your thumb down in the cookie's middle, creating a whole for jam. Daddy shows him which finger his thumb is; he happily joins in a rendition of"Where Is Thumbkin?," a song he knows since age one and a half. When presented with the ball of dough and asked to press down with his thumb, he pokes it with his pointer.

She sees daddy feeding jam straight from the makeshift pastry bag he's created out of a plastic bag, straight into her brother's mouth. She insists she wants to try the same thing. She gets the jam in her mouth, and spits it out onto the table where we've been working the dough.

He sneezes all over the dough.

I know what you're thinking: "You must be so proud."

Here's what I'm thinking: I've got great material with which to embarrass them someday at their weddings.

I even got the jam spitting on video.

What was the slogan back in the '70s? "Celebrate the moments of your life."

Though maybe I'm glad I didn't get footage of that tush-to-nose toilet paper moment.

The Extinction Method Ain't Fast Enough For Me

Lots of parenting books recommend something called the "extinction method" as a way of getting rid of bad or unacceptable behavior. The basic idea is, when your child commences the unacceptable behavior, you immediately withdraw all parental attention from the child. Do this often enough, so the thinking goes, and the unacceptable behavior will cease; it will become extinct, much like dinosaurs.

Well, maybe it works ... eventually.

But it sure isn't working around here, or at least it's not working fast enough for me.

Thing 1 has lately been going through a rebellion worthy enough of adolsecence, even though he's only three and a half. Contrarian when it comes to ... well, nearly everything, he balks at whatever he's given to eat or drink, or asked to wear, and wherever he's told we're going, he declares with stubborn, foot-stomping intensity, "I wanna go somewhere ELSE!" It matters not to him that he has no idea where "else," only that he register his refusal to go along with whatever's planned, even if the planned destination is a birthday party that will undoubtedly feature pizza, cake, and the parting gift of goody bags. Hell no, Thing 1 won't go ... unless bodily picked up and carried, arms and legs flailing (usually aimed lethally at daddy's private parts; what the hell, we weren't planning on giving him another sibling anyway).

When this phase first began, we tried reasoning with our Little Dictator. Clearly that was a mistake.

Then we simply told him "no," he could NOT have whatever thing he wanted, but must comply with our request.

That only resulted in more high-pitched, ear-grating whining, or worse, an all-out fit.

There have been time-outs where possible, and there have been sessions where clothes have been taken off against his will (when it's time to change for bed and he's refusing), or occasions when he's been carried out of wherever we are, howling to the Gods of preschool about his unjust fate.

Once in a while, dad has been able to turn a whining session into giggles. Or mom has succeeded in distracting, changing the subject, bribing with a promised treat or toy.

But those have been brief respites. Sir Whines-A-Lot continues his dread reign.

The best method seems to be to ignore the whining, fit or protest in whatever form it takes, by leaving the room and ignoring him altogether.

Eventually, he seems to tire of his protests.

The problem is, "eventually" takes too long. It takes too long on each occasion, because the whining and protesting either goes on for what seems like an hour but is probably just ten very annyoing minutes, or it goes away briefly, only to reappear moments later when the next parental request is issued and met with refusal.

Ignoring one fit hasn't yet eliminated the next one.

And until it does, I remain about skeptic about the much-lauded "extinction method."

Still, I'm desperate. So today I told his dad, it's gotta be Zero Tolerance: at the first whine, we've got to start ignoring him. Perhaps by continued repitition, he'll finally get it: the whining gets him nowhere ... except stuck with himself, and without whatever it is he wants.

Let the ignoring begin.

(But I'm not holding my breath.)

They Put WHAT WHERE?

Just spent twenty minutes using my car key to jimmy pretzel sticks and smushed raisins out of that narrow crack between the bottom of the car window and the passenger door.

This was after Hoover-ing the backseat floor with the DustBuster, sucking up ground Pepperidge Farm Goldfish (did you know they now come in colors? I'm serious. There are green, red and purple Pepperidge Farm Goldfish). The mini vacuum also sucked up discarded Pirate Booty, more pretzel sticks, the clear wrappers for plastic straws that come with vanilla soy milk boxes, and the odd miniature rubber tire from a Matchbox car.

By rights I oughtta be cleaning out the backseat floor and area around the car seats every other day. But because life has more pressing concerns, I wind up doing it oh, say, once a fiscal quarter.

The one saving grace of the car's interior upholstery is that it's leather, so when the kids spill liquid on the seats, I'm able to mop it up without mold setting in. The carpeting, well, that's another matter entirely. I've been known to utilize Nature's Miracle there, a potent potion concocted for the sole purpose of neutralizing cat urine. Clearly the makers of Nature's Miracle are missing their ancillary market: the parents of toddlers.

But lest I think I have it bad, my friend Jenine, mother of three kids -- one set of twin toddlers among them -- tops me with this recent correspondence (hope you don't mind my stealing this for the blog, Jenine):

"What price would you put on a plastic Tyrannosaurus Rex toy? 25 cents? One dollar? How about $209.58? This 4- inch toy is the most expensive toy we own. Two hundred nine dollars and fifty eight cents....in plumbing repairs. It seems that someone in this house likes to stuff things into holes. I'm not pointing fingers, but my guess is N. (The twin boy). Apparently he thought that the toilet would be a good place for this prehistoric monster to live. Or maybe he just thought the dino might like to swim. In any case the thing got lodged in our toilet. Of course it had to happen after unloading a particularly nasty mess into the toilet that R. (the twin girl) made in the bathtub. Eww! Cleaned that up, flushed, and voila, toilet overflow! It took the visit of two different plumbers to get it out. The first one tried to get us to buy a new toilet! At first we thought maybe it was a clog of diaper wipes used when R. decided to unload the contents of her diaper to use as "food" in her play kitchen. But no, it was just one plastic toy living a goldfish's nightmare. The toilet isn't N.'s only target. He really loves to remove the heat registers and put things down into the vent. It took me 3 days to find the TV remote and a good 2 hours to fish it out with plastic straws and packing tape. I wonder if my calculator is down there too? So that's life with twin toddlers. When I'm not clamping my jaws with displeasure I'm laughing until my sides split."

I can't speak for Jenine, but when my toddlers are not creating a general nuisance by trashing a car's interior or gumming up plumbing, they do so by misplacing things.

Case in point: Monday night, before bed, we must've spent fifteen minutes in search of the twin stuffed duckies Thing 2 cannot sleep without. They were discovered in the hamper, where she had dumped them while changing out of school clothes and into her nightgown. She was no help finding them, as she'd forgotten she'd dumped them there (or put on a pretty good act of forgetting, so as to further delay bedtime and watch as mommy, daddy, and an old friend from NYC who was over for dinner, searched the entire place repeatedly with the urgency of the Gestapo in a W.W. II movie looking for escaped P.O.W.s).

This summer, just before we left for the airport and a flight to NYC, Thing 1 lost his binky somewhere in our building lobby, never to be found again, and we were forced to break into the emergency binky stash. Thank goodness we had a spare.

I shudder to think how many hours of my life have already been frittered away searching for things they've put where they shouldn't, or cleaning up a mess so spectacular even the Bush administration can't take credit for it.

Yes, I love them. Yes, I wouldn't replace them. But would it hurt them to put the expensive organic raisins in their mouths and not down the car window crack?

You Can't Always Get What You Want

Mick and the Stones got it right.

But somehow, no matter how many times I say it, I can't seem to get my three-year-olds to learn it.

Much like the Bush-Cheney administration, my three-year-olds have proven impervious to logic.

Take getting ready for school. Thing 1 wants to wear his red Lightning McQueen t-shirt (for the uninitiated, Lightning McQueen is the hero of Pixar & Disney's CARS), but the shirt is in the hamper, dirty, needing a wash. Thing 1 is told the shirt is dirty. Thing 1 throws a fit anyway, convinced he will get his way. Ten minutes and much cajoling later, a gray Lightning McQueen t-shirt has been located and offered as a substitute. The shirt goes on.

But the next impossible request is made. Thing 1 wants frozen waffles for breakfast topped with peanut butter and jelly. Late Blooming Mom makes the discovery that we are out of peanut butter, and explains patiently and repeatedly to Thing 1 -- now thrashing about on the floor again -- that until such time as she has the chance to go to the grocery store, there is no peanut butter to be had. Thing 1 cannot be pacified with promises of future peanut-butter-laden waffles. Nor does the offer of a pancake work. We're in for it: a fight to get him out of the house, into his car seat, and all the way to school. There, teary-eyed, he'll be given a snack by a teacher, a snack that does not involve the merest smidge of peanut butter, yet somehow, amazingly, does not arouse even a whimper of protest. Suddenly all is right with his world again. Not so much for the parent who drove him to school, who is still traumatized, nerves frayed and jangled by the morning's events.

Upon preschool pickup later, Thing 2 doesn't understand why she can't have a pink lollipop when Late Blooming Mom has searched the entire bag of lollipops and can't find any in that color. Thing 2 is invited to undertake her own search. She can find no pink lollipop: its utter absence from the array of otherwise delightfully flavored lollipops has been confirmed. Nevertheless, Thing 2 cries, "I want a PINK one!" And proceeds to repeat this plea twenty times in the next two minutes.

They want, they need, they must have, the very thing that is not immediately available, or simply can't be had.

No arguments to the contrary are brooked, even when it is demonstrably proven that said object of desire is unattainable.

As I said, they are impervious to logic.

And the fits go on.

Distraction occasionally works. Bribery with some OTHER potential object of desire might do in a pinch. But often, there simply is no solution save letting the explosion run its course.

Somehow or other, though, I keep appealing to reason, presenting clear and easy to follow arguments and demonstrating my point with all the evidence I can muster. I don't know why I do this. It's as if I expect them to suddenly, instantly, this time, grow up just enough to understand and accept that they cannot, at this moment, get exactly what they want.

It ain't likely to happen, yet I persist.

Could it be that I, too, am impervious to logic?

Uh oh. They're starting to infect me.

Toddlers Need A Turkey Timer

You know that little plastic thermometer that pops up when the Thanksgiving turkey is done?

This morning, Late Blooming Dad came up with the idea that there should be such a thing for toddlers ... only it should pop up ten minutes before they're done. And by done I mean about to become impossible.

Today we took Thing 1 and Thing 2 to the Brentwood Country Mart, a place most small kids adore. That's because it has coin-operated rides, a toy store, and ample kid-friendly food options, as well as an outdoor courtyard in which to eat adjacent to aforementioned kiddie rides and toy store. You'd think our kids would've been thrilled to be there.

For a little while, they were. They emptied our pockets of spare quarters, and rode the same rides they'd ridden before with no sign of boredom. They eyed the toy store and promised to be good and eat their lunches in exchange for the chance to inside. But somehow, by the time food arrived, their moods had shifted.

It wasn't as if we hadn't fed them breakfast and offered plentiful snacks. They'd had French toast and fruit before attending a one-hour kiddie gym class, and upon arrival at the Country Mart, were given yogurt squeezers (for the uninitiated, that's yogurt in a tube, so it's like a push-up popsicle). We'd also plied them with breakfast bars just before and after gym class, though they'd only nibbled on these. We'd even given them the City Bakery's delectable pretzel croissants to munch on while waiting for their food to be prepared (but they stopped after a couple of bites each).

Food arrived. The grilled cheese for him and eggs on toast for her went mostly uneaten; demands for mommy and daddy's lemonade were incessant; and when daddy procured rotisserie chicken legs, they still had to be coaxed to get protein into their systems. Only the promise of the toy store visit coaxed them to eat the chicken they normally devour. By now, they were unable to sit in one place and wanted to run amok on the courtyard ramp, only there were too many people around to make it sufficiently easy to navigate.

Daddy explained they could go to the toy store on condition that they would not be allowed to get a new toy. Reluctantly, they agreed to this precondition. By now it was getting precariously close to nap time, and here's where that turkey timer popping up would've been most useful.

Unfortunately, though we managed to coax one out of the store peacefully, the other had to be carried out screaming. By the time we arrived at the car, screaming one had calmed and was practically asleep, but the other hit her stride and refused to get into the car seat, prompting an exasperating wrestling match. The ride home was marked by a stop to calm her and re-insert her into the car seat's five-point harness, out of which she had partly wriggled. The top-of-the-lungs protest continued for a few painful minutes, followed by wimpering and at last, when I put a comforting hand on hers while contorting my body in ways no one should to reach the back seat, quiet finally reigned.

It was on this drive that Late Blooming Dad came up with the idea for an early warning Toddler Timer similar to the Turkey timer.

I'm ready to buy stock in the company that first puts these on the market.

Back To School, AKA The Return Of The Von Crankensteins

What is it about the start of the school year -- or in my kids' case, the preschool year -- that brings out the worst in everyone in Late Blooming Mom's house?

Thing 1 and Thing 2 returned to school last Thursday after a nearly two-week absence from the school itself (it's where they attended summer camp), and promptly turned into the toddler equivalents of Dr. Von Frankenstein's famous monster and his bride. Worse, in reaction to their tantrums, whining, and incessant demands, Late Blooming Mom and Dad were similarly transformed -- into Von Crankensteins, the elders.

During the weekend following the resumption of school, there has been more outright yelling, foot-stomping, wheedling, needling, mewling, and collapsing onto the floor into a flailing heap while kicking at anyone daring to come into kicking distance than during our entire end-of-summer vacation, even though THAT involved two long airplane trips, sleeping in an unfamiliar location (grandma and grandpa's house) and the total disruption of daily routine.

Last year around this time, I remember talking with my dearest friend Karen, an elementary school teacher and mother of two who has always displayed the cool, calm wisdom of an earth mother even though she was pretty young by the standards of our post-collegiate crowd when she had her first kid. Karen told me that the weeks around the back to school period are ALWAYS stressful in her house. It matters not that her family has been through the school year's start time and time again. Crankiness abounds, snippyness becomes the normal mode of communication, and everybody seems to be in a constant bad mood.

Still, I was unprepared for the strength and force of this perfect storm, this emotional tidal wave of short tempers and hair triggers. Sometimes when I've had a bad night's sleep or two, and the kids are less pliable/more vehement about getting their way than normal, I find myself momentarily turning bitchy and tight-faced and gritting my teeth or storming out of the room until I can get hold of myself. But this past weekend, I was in a near-constant state of maternal irritation, just-about-to-boil fury, and more than once, my pot simply boiled over. I taught my kids bad lessons by modeling the loss of self-control when frustrated. Bring on the Child-Rearing Police. If yelling, door slamming and storming out are the charges, I plead very, very guilty.

I have an old friend I wish I was more in touch with, a Kentuckian by birth, whom I remember, when she had two toddlers, using the vividly colorful Southern vernacular phrase, "stepping on my last nerve." I guess the idea behind it is that you've got a bunch of exposed nerves when you're a mom, and your kids keep stepping on them, and yet you cope, until they get to that very last, untouched nerve. And then they don't just step -- they stomp. You utterly lose it, and the kids know it. It's as if they've been waiting to provoke you to reach this point, just to see what will happen, or worse, thrive on the negative attention this maternal volcanic explosion garners them.

My last nerve has most definitely been stomped on.

Dad's too, for it was he who had to get them out the door without my help this morning (I had an early appointment) and drag them, howling and clinging, into school in front of all the other moms or dads at drop-off. (Thanks to those parents who've helped out during moments like this, taken pity on him after a shared look of recognition and a sigh of relief that at least it wasn't their kid(s) this time).

Dad called me to vent on his way to work. It was his way of coping. Now I am coping my way: trying to take some time for myself to be calm, get into some kind of Zen place where fountains of water are gently flowing (or at least I hear the fountain in the courtyard outside my office window), my inner self is at peace, and I am in control so I won't utterly lose it later when I retrieve Thing 1 and Thing 2 from preschool.

I can't really blame them for their rebelliousness if I consider that, during vacation, they had mom and dad's undivided attention 24/7, doting grandparents, gifts of new toys and books for the plane rides, access to more treats than usual, and days devoted to visiting playgrounds, museums, a kiddie pool, and the toy-strewn houses and apartments of our relatives and friends with children. Then, suddenly, they were thrust back into full-day preschool, where they were separated from mom and dad for many hours, had to share with lots of other kids, and conform to what somebody else decided they should do. They weren't happy about this change, and registered their dissatisfaction sort of the way our cat did when we picked him up from four nights' boarding at the vet's. (That night, the cat pooped and peed in all the wrong places. Message received, oh furry one.)

But then again, my kids can theoretically reason and communicate at this age -- certainly more than my cat will ever be able to. So did they have to be SUCH primadonnas in venting their displeasure? I'm reminded of the scene in SPINAL TAP when Nigel Tufnel throws a snitfit over the size of the cocktail bread he's been given to snack on backstage (not to mention and his irrefutable -to-him, child-like logic that a guitar amplifier that goes to eleven is SOOOO much better than one that goes to ten, even though it really is no louder).

I console myself that after the worst of Thing 2's fits this weekend, she came and found me in my bedroom, where I'd curled up in a big comfy chair, utterly spent ... and she snuggled with me. Despite my having lost it in front of her, she still sought the comfort of my embrace, and we calmed down together. Later that night, my son held my hand and snuck into the space under my arm, where he so conveniently fits. Perhaps a lesson has been learned amidst the icky-ness of back to school stress: that even when mom -- or kid -- loses it, there is still plenty of love to be had around here. Getting angry doesn't mean you forfeit love and acceptance. My kids know my love for them is secure, even though their behavior may mean the temporary withdrawal of my apparently much coveted attention.

We don't have to like each other all the time, especially when it's back to school week, and we're all being impossible -- in kid or grown-up form. Somtimes we really wear each other out, but to paraphrase artist/author Ian Falconer of the OLIVIA children's book series, we love each other anyway.

The Beast In The House

A few years back, a book called THE BITCH IN THE HOUSE was all the sensation. Some very smart, articulate women, single, married, and married with kids, admitted they're angry a lot -- and some of the moms were angry at the neediness of their preschoolers.

Count me in.

I say that knowing full well that being needy is the normal state of being for preschoolers for chunks of every day.

I say that knowing I'm not supposed to be angry because I should just accept the reality of the situation.

But the thing is, when one of my three-and-half year-olds is angry, that kid does not accept the reality of the situation and deal. That kid throws a fit.

Sometimes that fit goes on for twenty-friggin' minutes. Twenty eternal minutes so loud they hurt your eardrums and fracture your very last nerve.

Maybe other moms who are more resilient, or more patient, or past caring, don't mind so much.

But when the precious little free time I have at the end of a work day and school day has been eroded to a sliver before my own bedtime because I've been dealing with a screaming, whining, kicking, thoroughly self-absorbed and stubborn little beast in the house, then I admit it: I am the bitch in the house.

I know getting angry about it makes ME the child, especially when I'm supposed to be modeling good behavior and showing the kids how to handle anger.

But aren't I entitled to throwing a fit of my own now and then?

Preschoolers can be the sweetest angels on earth. But let's face it, they're also beasts. Sometimes they switch from angelic to beastly in mere seconds -- it's as if they have personality A.D.D.

When it happens, I do well sometimes: I'm patient and wait it out. I ignore. Or I leave the room till I can calm down. Sometimes.

But every once in a while, the inner bitch comes out, and self-control, well, that goes out the window.

So Yo, Bitches -- I Be One Wit' You. This is a tough job, and sometimes the only remedy we have is to, well, bitch about it.

Surviving Those "Sudden Squalls"

Had lunch recently with another late blooming mom (to two preschoolers) and we were discussing tantrums and fits... because when you're the parent of a preschooler, that's what you wind up talking about. We were commiserating about how sometimes, no matter how hard we try to avoid tantrums -- feeding our kids before they melt down, or getting them home in time for that crucial nap -- sometimes the kids just gotta let fly. She referred to these unstoppable tantrums as "sudden squalls" and I nodded my head in recognition: what a perfect expression of what our kids do. Like a fast-moving, brief rainstorm, these tantrums or fits come with little warning, and they don't last that long (if we're lucky), but they are mighty, mighty bad weather.

Lately Thing 1 and Thing 2 have been subject to sudden squalls two, three, even four times in a day. Kicking is sometimes involved (thankfully, not us or each other, but the floors, walls and doors are taking a beating). Screaming almost certainly is. And the main issue seems to be that they want something they can't have, or don't want to do something they're supposed to. But sometimes it's hard to say just what a particular squall is about ... other than getting home from preschool after a long day, and deciding that, in the safety of home, it's simply time to be impossible.

What's a parent to do? My lunch companion pretty much deals with them the same way Late Blooming Mom does: ignore and endure.

Fits and tantrums are, according to most of the childcare books in the growing pile of them on my night table, age-appropriate behavior for preschoolers, part of the territory, something to be expected. Some of them are going to happen because parents are trying to set important limits (no, you cannot have a cupcake before dinner, and yes, you must take a bath tonight). Some of them are going to happen because you simply can't always get home in the nap window, and over- tiredness is going to kick in. Or because you forgot a snack for that trip to the park. Some way or other, they're going to happen.

I don't know at what age kids outgrow having sudden squalls -- let alone a four-squall day. I'm sure I had my share of them (maybe more -- control-freak Virgo that I am). But I do know this: every time I watch a sudden squall hit a kid at the park, the mall, or in a restaurant, I feel -- well, first I feel glad it's not my kid, for once -- but I feel strangely comforted. That squall means I'm not alone. And it also means, next time one of my kids is squall-ing, I know that this, too, shall pass.

Beach Babies: What I Planned, And What Really Happened

So here it is, July Fourth, perhaps the biggest beach-going day of the year.

Late Blooming Mom had it all planned: we'd be out of the house, bathing suited and sun-screened, all supplies packed, by nine-thirty a.m.

We'd have a traffic-free drive up the Pacific Coast Highway to Paradise Cove, a private beach in Malibu with a beach-side restaurant, pier, and mild waves. We'd frolic in the sand, picnic under our beach umbrella, and make a lovely half-day of it, getting back for nap time.

This ain't what happened.

How did I ever fool myself into thinking I'd get my beach babies -- two cranky, difficult three-and-a-half years-olds -- out of the house on a national holiday in a reasonable amount of time? Thanks to the full-on fit Thing 2 threw when I asked her to take a pre-excursion shower to wash her nest of hair (she'd refused the bath or shower last night, in another full-on-fit), we lost precious time. Victory was mine eventually -- I got her hair washed -- but then Thing 1 didn't want to stop playing with his cars long enough to get into his swimsuit.

Dad -- who had gamely fed them breakfast while I showered - was in no mood to take a long drive up the coast, and insisted on a much closer beach destination. Out went the fancy beach. No matter, public Will Rogers beach was just far enough away from the holiday hordes in Santa Monica, even if they did charge us an exorbitant ten-dollar parking fee.

The traffic gods were with us, so by ten thirty or so, we'd plunked ourselves down on the sand, with way too much stuff scattered around us: sand toys, lunch food, a beach ball, umbrella, blanket, diaper bag loaded with the kids' spare clothes. It seemed like we'd taken half the house with us.

The kids alternated from delighted to cranky within mere seconds. There was the fight over the request to eat cookies before lunch (denied); the fight over whether or not the lunch packed would be eaten or snack bar would be resorted to (the packed lunch won eventually); the fight over the last peanut butter and jelly sandwich (Thing 2 insisted this morning she only wanted peanut butter, no jelly, but then changed her mind at the beach).

There was fear of the ocean to contend with: only mommy or daddy actually made it into the water, and then just to fill up the bucket to make a mini-lake for the toy boats we brought.

There was the trip to the restroom, chaperoned by daddy, who had to handle both kids at once because someone had to sit with all our stuff (mom), and both kids insisted on going potty at the same time.

There was the sand-throwing ("Don't do that again, how many times do I have to tell you?").

There was the inevitable meltdown upon leaving. Thing 1 insisted on being carried because the sand was getting onto his flip flops, even though mommy kept explaining and demonstrating that we wear flip flops to the beach instead of shoes so they CAN get sand on them. Thing 2 blew a gasket at having to wear her car seat seat belt because her underwear felt "squishy."

Then they both fell asleep by the time we pulled into the garage.

Dad, still grumpy -- he's missing a reunion of college pals on the east coast this weekend -- went off to do some grocery shopping, insisting he needed a break.

And me, I'm left blogging, and realizing the idyllic beach excursion I had in mind was doomed from the start.

Still, there were moments -- the ones I'll remember, since they're the ones I bothered to photograph -- that were sweet. The kids loved the beach, even if daddy wanted to be elsewhere, and mommy couldn't relax because she was playing referee.

One moment I didn't capture on film that I may remember nonetheless was when we were all heading back to the car. Daddy had to carry Thing 1, and I was hauling our gear while trying to safeguard Thing 2 through the parking lot. An older gent passing by looked at us and said to me, "No one said it was gonna be easy."

He got that right.

I'll just add this other truism, slightly modified: "Late Blooming Mom plans. God laughs."

What's Going On In There?

Just a quick entry send you to this great ONION piece about what's going on in babies' heads ... ya know ya wanna know ... (click on ONION, above, to get to the piece ...)

And more soon from the frontlines of late blooming motherhood.

"Childhood Is A Period Of Transitory Psychosis"

Not my words.

In fact, they're not even the words of Thomas W. Phelan, author of the best-selling discipline-your-kids book 1-2-3 MAGIC. But he's the one who quotes them, attributing them to some anonymous author. I first heard them quoted to me on Friday, from my high school pal Jode, who's another late blooming mom -- of twins. When she said them, a bell went off in my head. Did it just ring in yours too?

It may sound like a harsh statement, but for those of us on the front lines of parenting toddlers, it's just the truth.

I freely admit I'm no model parent -- this blog can attest to how I've lost it and blown up at my kids, for example. But I try hard not to be raising little brats. I want to raise little mensches. (For those of you not familiar with Yiddish, a rough translation: a good, compassionate, giving person of integrity.) Nevertheless, the kids aren't born acting like mensches. They've gotta be taught. It's not that they don't have the sweet gene. It's that they also have the selfish gene. The irrational gene. And the persistent-to-the-point-of-intransigence gene.

I try hard to encourage the sweet gene. But there are moments when the others are just gonna win out, no matter what kind of parent I'm trying to be.

Last Friday I went on a parenting-book buying spree, out of desperation. For five solid mornings, our children were impossible when we tried to get them ready for preschool. (Our amazing part-time nanny, who usually helps me get the troops to school, wasn't working those mornings. Coincidence? I think not.) So this weekend I cracked open the first -- the aforementioned 1-2-3 Magic -- and began putting it into practice. So far, so good. The fits didn't go away. But they were of shorter and less painful duration. The sticker chart with all the morning tasks the kids need to accomplish, is doing us nicely too (the kids get a reward -- an inexpensive toy -- from the "treasure box" if they complete the tasks). I'm encouraged.

But I know not to get my hopes up too high.

"Sometimes," Jode reminded me, "they're just gonna be crazy." It's our job, as parents, to live through it. And our choice whether we do so gritting our teeth, or philosophically, calmly, waiting out the crazy moments. Sometimes, I hope to do the latter. But parenthood being what it is, I know I'll have my crazy moments too.

Optimistic Amnesiacs

A few weeks back I wrote about our "vacation" weekend in Santa Barbara, prompting my dear old friend Mark to comment, "Now you know the difference between a vacation and a trip."

So you'd have thought I'd have been prepared for the singular hell that was the morning we left on our next "vacation."

Yet somehow, nature or God (if you believe in that sort of supreme being) wired would-be vacationing parents to be optimistic amnesiacs. That morning, when I awoke seven-thirty-ish and began to get Thing 1 and Thing 1 ready for our 358-mile journey to the Bay Area, I actually believed we'd breakfast, dress, brush teeth, and be out the door and underway by nine o'clock.

Nature or God or whoever is responsible for the wiring of three-year-olds must've been, in the words of British comedian Ricky Gervais, "havin' a laugh."

I'm far too shell-shocked, just a few days later, to remember just how many fits were thrown by Thing 1 and Thing 2 that morning. I certainly can't recall what each one was about, though I have a dim recollection of having been roundly chastised for cutting a banana instead of handing it over whole for consumption. I remember howls of protest that followed my picking out item after item of clothing that was deemed to "not match" and was summarily rejected. There were disagreements over footwear preferences (Thing 1 went from insisting upon donning his new light-up Lightning McQueen sneakers to fiercely rejecting said sneakers within the space of two minutes). There was heated discussion of how many hair scrunchies could be put into Thing 2's hair and what shade of scrunchy was allowed, and then the aforementioned scrunchies had to be made tighter roughly every twenty seconds. There was a fight between Thing 1 and Thing 2 over a certain toothbrush both insisted on using, even though Thing 2 was just getting over a virus. You get the idea.

Meanwhile, Dad was alternately packing up the car or attempting to intercede in the ongoing whine-a-palooza that was taking place. Then he had to set up the portable video player in the car, involving a complex piece of rigging between the seats that he'd been unable to get in place previously, having worked till well past midnight the night before, necessitated by having missed half a day at the office tag-teaming with Late Blooming Mom to care for Thing 2, who was suffering from the aforementioned virus.

But perhaps the culmination of the tortuous morning from hell was when Thing 1 suddenly announced his binky was missing.

Is there anything more damnably exasperating then when you've finally got the car packed and everyone ready to leave on a six-hour-plus drive, only to realize your departure has again been delayed by an all-hands search for a missing pink binky?

Somewhere, God, nature, or whoever/whatever is responsible for causing a three-year-old to lose his binky at the most inopportune moment, was laughing so hard that I believe he/she or it broke his/her/its ass.

Yes, we're talking ass-breaking laughter.

Late Blooming Mom, on the other hand, was near tears.

We abandoned hope of ever finding the binky, and located a substitute.

I got behind the wheel ready to tear that binky in half with my bare teeth. Good thing it wasn't in my mouth, but in Thing 1's. He stopped whining almost immediately.

It took me nearly 100 miles -- to un-grit my teeth.

And that, dear blog readers, is how Late Blooming Mom's latest "vacation" -- pardon me, 'trip" -- began.

Here's to optimistic amnesiacs -- otherwise known as vacationing parents -- everywhere. Much like the pain of childbirth is mysteriously forgotten before a mother conceives another child, if we didn't forget how hard it is to get out of town with the family, we'd never go, would we?

Potty Mouth Has Made Its First Appearance

Thing 1 misbehaved at preschool.

Apparently, while on the potty, he dropped the f-bomb.

We know this because one of his teachers pulled Daddy aside at drop-off to let us know, and to request that maybe we teach him to say something inoffensive like "fudge." She added that she, too, has uttered the same word in front of her own kid while she burned herself on the stove, prompting her son to repeat it.

Clearly she attempted to make us feel better by including this anecdote about herself.

But suddenly all those times Late Blooming Mom or Daddy have uttered bad words in front of our kids are coming back to haunt us. And we can't help but feel like bad parents, wondering what the teacher and everyone else within earshot and above toddler age thinks of us.

I knew my kids had learned "Goddammit!" from my own lips, utttered in exhaustion and exasperation. But I've already tried to persuade them to substitute the silly "Goshdarnit!" Thing 2 asked me what it means and I told her, "It means 'oh bother,' just like in WINNIE THE POOH." Since she's already fond of "oh bother," this was the perfect explanation, and she has, indeed, been happily using the new compound word I created to replace the swear word.

But the f-bomb, I honestly can't recall saying in front of them. Daddy thinks he may have been to blame. I certainly could have. It's not that I don't watch my language around the kids 95% of the time. But goshdarnit, sometimes the lack of sleep and stress over trying to balance work and family life make me much less patient, and much more apt to explode in a string of epithets. Often the bad words are prompted by bad behavior on the kids' part -- refusing to listen, say, when asked to stop jumping off their beds onto the floor; refusing to go to bed; refusing to stop saying ... well, bad words.

I'm embarrassed about my son saying the f-bomb. But what's worse is, when I try to point out to him that this isn't a nice word, and I suggest using another, he just laughs and keeps repeating it. If only he'd misheard, the way he did with "damn it," which accounts for him heartily proclaiming "Bam it!" several times a day, just for the thrill of it.

I can't help but find it ironic, though, that Thing 1's potty mouth incident occurred WHILE he was using the potty. I gotta give the kid some credit. If you can't drop an f-bomb into your speech while sitting on the toilet, then when CAN you use the f---ing word?

To anyone who claims they've never said a bad word in front of their kids -- who must've learned such things somewhere, I say -- what the hell. We're not going there for saying those words, and neither are our kids. But I realize I may be getting more than my share of notes from teachers in the year ahead. Bam it.

When They Just Make You Crazy

My teeth hurt.

It's not because I need dental work.

It's because I have two three-year-olds who won't go to bed.

It matters not to them that they are overtired, exhausted, and one of them is sick. They just want to prolong their time awake, at whatever the cost to Late Blooming Mom's (and Dad's) sanity.

Or so it seems.

It's not fear of the dark that's keeping them up (they have a night light). It's not fear of abandonment. They know damn well we are in the next room if they need us. It's all about control -- them, over us.

It's at the point where one or the other parent has to stay in the room, laying between the cribs to make sure they keep quiet and stay in bed.

This only exasperates me or my husband, and leads to us having precious little time for each other, or to ourselves, after bedtime.

We've pulled out the threats -- no TV the next day, none at all -- and we've made good on the threats twice already. They're good for a night, then fall right back into their bad habits the next night.

No wonder my teeth hurt.

As I wrote in this space once before, as I child, I fought bedtime so hard that my own mom put me out in the hallway of our New York City apartment building with my blanket and my stuffed rabbit. I've been determined to avoid inflicting such trauma on my own kids; I know it was traumatic because forty-plus years later, I can still remember it.

But I can sure as hell see where she was coming from.

We have a bedtime routine. We limit the number of books we read. We cuddle to the same three songs on the same CD after books. Then we walk them to their beds, and put on the CD they associate with sleeping that they've heard practically since birth.

Some nights it works.

Some nights, they make me insane. Tonight is one of those nights.

So to all those other parents out there who may, this very night, be gritting their hurting teeth and wanting to slam doors and scream and tear out their last non-gray hairs, I say, I hear you, brothers and sisters.

Wanna meet for a drink?

The Rails Are Off, Continued ...

So it's been about 3 weeks since we took a side off Thing 1's crib. His nocturnal wanderings haven't entirely gone away: we can count on him appearing in our bedroom every third or fourth night, sometime in the middle of the night, saying he's lost his binky. One time he said so even though it was still in his mouth.

But he IS going down at bedtime and staying in bed to fall asleep, and that's major progress. There is much rejoicing chez Late Blooming Mom.

On the other hand, the anything-goes spirit of New Year's Eve that marked the first couple of weeks of no side rail at bedtime has been replaced by early morning hijinks. This morning, Thing 1 got into Thing 2's crib (Thing 2's side rail has been off since Thanksgiving), and began to bounce. Whereupon Thing 2 switched to Thing 1's crib, and SHE began to bounce. I walked in on them and saw the "we know we're not supposed to do this but we're really having fun" look on their faces. But it was barely seven a.m., and official wake-up time in Late Blooming Mom's house is not until seven-thirty, a far more civilized time.

I knew the minute I left the room the crib-swapping hijinks would continue unabated, so I firmly announced I would be laying down on the futon we've got on the floor between the cribs (we put it there to guard against any middle-of-the-night falls from bed) to keep them contained until official wake-up time. Theoretically this would ensure they'd both stay in their cribs, resting if not exactly sleeping, until I was ready to face the day with them.

Of course this isn't what happened. Two minutes after I lay down, Thing 2 gave me a plaintive, "mommy, could I cuddle with you?" This was soon followed by the same request from Thing 1. So three minutes into my attempt to get a little more shut-eye while keeping them contained, I was crowded onto the futon with both of them.

Four minutes in, I was perched precariously over the edge of the futon, practically on the floor, while snuggling with both kids. They began to play with my hands, the blanket, the pillows, each other. They managed to stay relatively horizontal for another ten minutes or so, and then it was time to bounce again.

My tired self is wondering just how long the morning hijinks are going to go on, and hoping they'll go the way of the bedtime shenanagins.

I should probably go to bed the same time the kids do, just to catch up on sleep. But of course, it's the only time of the day I have to myself -- or to spend with my husband -- so I wind up staying up too late. By the time I crawl between the sheets I find myself thinking, "great, they've been asleep for two hours; they have a two-hour sleeping head-start on me. I'll never catch up." I don't remember my own parents ever being this tired. Of course, they weren't late bloomers at parenting. Maybe they had the right idea, doing it so young.

But I've got no choice at this point. I just hope the Gods of Sleep -- and my kids -- take pity on me.

The Payback Kid, Part II

Back in January, I wrote about how Thing 1 and Thing 2 were in heated competition (though they didn't know it) for the title of THE PAYBACK KID -- the kid destined to pay back Late Blooming Mom for all the trouble I put my own mom through. After trading the title back and forth over their first three years, it seemed pretty clear there was a decisive winner: Thing 2, my daughter.

But in a mere three months, she has lost the title back to her brother. And oh, how he is earning it.

It all started when we resumed preschool after a week of spring break, and he decided school is not for him. Every morning, as soon as I entered the kids' room, my son would begin his whine: "I don't wanta go ta school." He'd proceed to repeat this whine all through my attempts to distract him (strategy number one) or ignore him (strategy two), and get him to breakfast, whereupon he'd start a new one: "I don't want orange juice." Or waffles. Or bananas. Or whatever was placed in front of him. Employing strategy number one, I tried to read him books from a selection he'd carted to the dining room table. Then the whine became, "I don't wanta read CURIOUS GEORGE," or "I don't wanta read MAISY MAKES LEMONADE," depending on whatever book I'd started to read. And so on and so forth it went through attempts to get him dressed for school and out the door and into daddy's car for drop-off.

Sometimes Thing 1 behaved like an angel during all this, being wholly cooperative and even attempting to get her brother to feel better by offering him toys or books or snacks for the car, or whatever she might have that he inevitably insisted he wanted. But other times, she fed off him and began whining too -- though not nearly with the persistence, repetition, and grating tone he seemed to have perfected.

My husband and I began to dread the mornings ... and we did so even though we have help in the mornings: our own part-time supernanny shows up at 7:30 and helps us get the kids fed, dressed, and out the door with lunches packed. Her preferred strategy was to ignore, and sometimes it worked, provided Late Blooming mom or dad left the room, instantly diminishing the reward of negative attention my son seemed to crave. But other times, there was no consoling him, especially if he hadn't gotten enough sleep the night before -- a distinct possibility on many mornings lately, since we've recently removed one side of his crib (see my previous post, The Rails Are Off).


Bottom line, in the morning, Thing 1 had become a pill.

He was still exhibiting these behaviors last week, though this morning he seems a bit better, having responded so far to my attempts at distraction and kissing/tickling him in giggle-inducing places. I am cautiously optimistic. But also prepared to have my hopes mercilessly crushed before morning drop-off. We'll see how it goes.

What's clear is that he's going through the same icky, willful, assertive developmental phase his sister went through several months back. Apparently it's typical of boys to be a bit slower on the developmental curve than girls, so this is understandable. Understandable, but no damn fun for anyone.

It's not really about school either, as he whines on the weekends ... and when I go to pick him up at school, he doesn't want to leave.

It's just about where he's at: seeing how far he can push mommy and daddy. Testing limits. And getting himself a reputation, to the point where even his sister, on the ride home from school the other day, turned to her brother and said, "Stop being difficult!"

Once again, my late mother is somewhere laughing her head off.

Payback isn't, in this case, a bitch. It's a male twin.

Post-drop-off uptdate: It must be noted that dad called from the road after dropping them both off and related the following: "I had THE SOUND OF MUSIC on in the car. He was singing along to EDELWEISS, every third word or so, in that sweet little castrati voice of his. It was adorable." And there was that moment, before he got into the elevator this morning, when he leaned against my leg and spontaneously said, "I love you, mommy."

That's my kinda payback.

Am I Raising Sybil? Are You?

Back when I was a kid, this book came out about a woman with multiple personalities, SYBIL. Not long after, you might remember it as a movie with "You Like Me, You Really Like Me" Oscar winner Sally Field. (I'm really going to date myself now, but before NORMA RAE, I always thought of her as "The Flying Nun" -- yes, there used to be a sitcom about a nun who could fly; what can I say, it was a simpler time). Anyway, this is a longish way of getting to my subject: how toddlers can be sweet-as-pie one minute, and banshee-wailing, tantrum-throwing, Linda Blair-in-"Exorcist"-mode maniacs.

This is what happened yesterday.

I go to pick up Thing 1 and Thing 2 from preschool. They run into my arms and greet me with great big bear hugs, the kind that make you soooooo glad to be a parent. (One time a preschool teacher of theirs watched them bestow these hugs on me after running into my arms and exclaimed,"Wow, I wish somebody would love me that much.") In this moment, they more than live up to the nickname a friend of mine and her husband have bestowed on them: The Adorables.

I coax the Adorables into their car seats and get them buckled in with offers of a treat: a small, wrapped, hollow milk chocolate chick, the kind that's crowding the supermarket seasonal displays in preparation for Easter. (Sidenote: yes, I bought my Jewish kids what is technically an Easter treat, but pagan celebrations of spring predate Easter AND Judaism, and besides, few bribes work as well as chocolate.) So we're driving home, and happy chocolate consumption is going on in the back seat, with all its gooey messiness...

Then it happens. Suddenly, and without warning, Thing 2 -- my daughter -- turns on a dime, morphing from Ms. Sweetness-and-Light to a screaming, writhing She-Creature of the Dark. She's finished her chocolate treat and suddenly noticed she's wearing a long-sleeve shirt over a short-sleeve shirt. It's the same outfit she's had on ALL DAY. But for no explicable reason, she now finds it offensive, and it must be taken off this minute. Nay, this second.

Those moms reading this and thinking, "It's your own fault, you gave her chocolate," can congratulate yourselves on calling out my tactical parenting error. But in my defense, I must add that chocolate has never previously had this dramatic -- and quick -- effect on Thing 2.

I tell her I'm driving. I tell her I can't stop now. I tell her we'll remove the offending garment the minute we get home.

But she cannot wait.

I have a choice: let the screaming ruin the drive home for myself and for Thing 1 -- who is still in some kind of chocolate-induced bliss, but won't be for long if this continues -- or I can pull over, unbuckle the She-Creature from the car seat, and whip off the shirt.

I do the latter, in the interests of peace. I recognize, even as I do it, that it's a mistake. I have given in. Thing 2 has played the Mommy Slot Machine and won a jackpot, and now she's going to keep playing, hoping she'll win again.

Still, I'm foolishly optimistic. I buckle her back in, letting her do the final "click" (a must when it comes to getting her into the car seat without fuss) and pull out.

Ms. Sweetness-And-Light has returned.

But her reign is short-lived. She-Creature is back within moments. Thing 2 can suddenly no longer abide the hair scrunchies and clips that have been in her hair ALL DAY. They must come out now, no matter how much of her own hair she pulls out with them. The trouble is, she can't pull them out herself. They get stuck, and she wails for my help. She demands, as commandingly as a highway patrol cop, that I pull over.

I'm damned if I'm going to comply, because then all is lost: she's going to know, if she wails long enough and loud enough, that I will give in.

So I compromise. At a stoplight, I put on the emergency brake, pray to the traffic gods the light stays red long enough, unbuckle myself, reach back, and pull out the offending hair paraphernalia.

The light changes. We move on. Ms. Sweetness-And-Light doesn't return, but neither does the She-Creature. Instead, Thing 2 becomes The Silent One.

Is this some utterly new personality? Or is she just tired? I don't have long to contemplate.

Thing 1 (my son) pipes up. By now he, too, has finished his chocolate treat. And now he declares it is his turn to pick the song on the car music system. He wants a particular song. I comply quickly, switching over to the requested song. Thing 1 insists this is not the song he wants -- even though I know damn well it is. "I want the other song," he says, then adding the same title of the song that's already playing. I have no clue why he thinks there are two distinct songs with the same title, or if there's some other song he's thinking of but can't articulate its name. All I know is, he is going on and on about it, becoming increasingly upset.

In protest, his shoes are flung off, scattering sand from the preschool playground all over the back seat.

They're quickly followed by his socks.

Then Thing 2 ends her silence. "It's MY turn!" she wails. She-Creature is back.

Before we get home, she's shoeless and sockless too.

Somehow, I restore calm, put socks and shoes back on, and haul them each out of the car into the garage, all the while singing "Ring Around The Rosey" to them -- when in trouble, distract, distract, distract!

Now my challenge is to get us inside the building lobby before we reach "All Fall Down" in the lyrics -- when they undoubtedly will. I don't want them to get filthy from plopping down on the garage floor, though the prospect of dirt doesn't phase them.

Happily, they throw themselves into singing, and race into the lobby, where they fall down in giggles, abandoning themselves to the perfect, giddy silliness that can only be achieved by three-year-olds. Once again, they are the Adorables.

And I am left wondering ... should I have named them each "Sybil?"

The Longest Day

The other night, I took Thing 1 and Thing 2 to Koo Koo Roo, an inexpensive chicken restaurant chain, for dinner right after picking them up from school.

They're always excited to go out to dinner, though Koo Koo Roo is one of the rare places I dare take them these days, given their proclivity to stand up in restaurant booths, run around the tables dancing, and in general, behave in ways that would make Emily Post resign her post.

Dinner actually went okay, despite a few overly rowdy, loud-voiced, gleeful (on their part) and mortifying (on mine) moments, and their insistence on ringing the big bell by the door that you're supposed to ring if you've had a great time, but which annoys staff and customers alike. We'd even managed to get out of the ladies room after a semi-reasonable ten minutes (both kids had insisted on using the toilet, rolling out too much toilet paper, changing their pull-ups, washing hands with too much soap, and pulling repeatedly on the paper towel dispenser). I was counting myself lucky, and considering the excursion a success, when we left the restaurant.

But once inside the parked car, it all went south.

Thing 1 announced he had pooped in his pull-up and needed a change, clearly not caring at all that he'd had every opportunity to poop in the bathroom just moments ago. Thing 2 refused to get in her car seat -- yet again -- even though we were but a three minute drive from home, where I could easily and quickly attend to Thing 1's needs.

Late Blooming Mom tried in vain to convince Thing 2 to get in her seat. There was car door slamming and there were raised voices -- hers and mine. Tempers were lost. Finally I had no choice but to troop back into the restaurant bathroom and have yet another marathon session. Thing 1 successfully cleaned and changed, we trooped back to the parked car ...

...whereupon Thing 2 once again refused to get in her seat.

Late Blooming Mom had already lost it once. And as the clock crept closer and closer to bedtime, the battle to control my temper was already lost.

I'd worked hard all day and tried to give my kids a treat by taking them out. This was how I was rewarded. I realize, of course, that's not at all how my three-year-olds saw it. But battle fatigue had set in.

After asking her to be a big girl and make me proud, after counting to 5 repeatedly, after an exasperated attempt to force a thirty-pound toddler into a seat, and after calling daddy, asking him to come and pick up Thing 2 because I was at my wits' end, Thing 2 twisted her foot in a seat strap. The injury was nothing at all serious, but it smarted enough to cause her to cry and to finally give in. She'd scared herself.

We drove home and I turned both kids over to daddy for their baths, unable to face them again until their much-delayed bedtime, when I -- and they -- were calm.

I hauled out the parenting books again in the aftermath of what seemed a never-ending day. I read all about how you can't give in, you can't reward the limit-testing kid with negative attention, and how most of all, you're not supposed to lose your temper. You've got to manage your own anger or you're modeling bad behavior, not to mention playing into their drama.

The books are right. But in practice, they're hard to put into practice.

Again I am confounded by the fact that being a later-in-life mom hasn't given me any more patience than a twenty-something mom ... in fact, because I get tired more easily and it's harder to recharge my batteries, I may have less.

I also wonder about the differences in temperament and gender: so often it's my daughter doing the limit-testing these days, and I wonder if it'll always be thus. The kid makes it harder for herself. But I am doing her no favors, I know, by not figuring out ways to short-circuit the drama before it blows up.

My friend Melanie, reading an exasperated email, writes to me about how she responds when her three-year-old acts up. "Let me know when you are ready to listen," she says, then leaves the room. I'm going to try that advice when the tantrums happen at home. But I'm not sure what to do when you've got two toddlers in the car you've gotta get home, and one is throwing a fit about a car seat that she's required by law to sit in.

For starters, I'm going to forgive myself for losing it. I have a feeling the kids are more resilient than I suspect, and watching mom lose it is not going to scar them for life. Then I'm going to pray to the patience Gods for more. I'll vow totry to enforce limits quickly without negotiating -- the bad habit/crutch of educated parents turning kids into mini-lawyers -- and hope with all my heart that Thing 2 will someday soon be a little easier to manage as a result ... or at least as a result of getting a bit older.

Fingers crossed.