the doctor's office

Off we went to the doctor's office for Zac's physical for school. The kids seemed calmly resigned to this. we have been to the doctor before, no big deal. This is a relatively new pediatrician, We had been in over the winter with a bout of pnemonia, and that has been it until now. We don't need to go there much. Emma had her physical and they both got updated immunizations last week. They knew there were no more shots coming, just Zac's physical then off to the grocery store. So this is what went down:
We get there and sit calmly to be called. I am reading some book to them.
"Zachary?" The kids turn toward the door. The redness eminating from my son's eyes should have been a giveaway, but I thought it must have been a trick of the light.
We are led to a room and that is where it all happens.
Let me just summarize it in point form:

1- Zac gets up on table and lies down stays very still. Is told not to lie down "Your not sick!" You are healthy! look at you!" Zac gets tickled. Big mistake. Proceeds to wiggle, shimmy, climb, hop up and down on the thing. Will not listen. Falls off and face plants on the floor. Is angry, not hurt.

2-Emma sees her moment and makes for the surgical gloves. She is not very stealth, Is immediately busted and begins to whine. Loudly. Yet somehow  they get a surgical glove each and beg for them to be blown up into roosters. I oblige, thinking they would chill out. Nope.

3-Doctor gives book to Zac. Emma sees no book coming for her & whining increases.
    Zac, in solidarity, throws the book to the floor because if Emma doesn't get one, he doesn't want   one. Doctor widens his eyes in scandal.  Both kids are going. They are winding themselves up and things are getting pretty loud.

4-Doctor is unimpressed with my family. Tells me that I need to restrict Zac's diet because he is chubby. (You want to know who is chubby by the way? This doctor is chubby -just saying.) Is tappity -tapping away on hs computer, no doubt firing off a plea for help to child services while simultaniously making notes on all this.

5- Kids are fighting each other over something now and I am attempting to get them to sit down in the chairs. Doctor is observing the breakdown with a teacher's pet-like sneer. questioning their sleep habits. Zac stomps on Emma's Rooster. It pops. She screams.

6- I am temporarily ignoring the doctor as I have suddenly got my hands full of feral children. If we were at the park or anywhere else in the world. I would have gotten them out of there long ago.

7- Zac, who is totally gone by this point, pulls his ninja moves on me and kicks and chops me in a 3.5 year old flurry.

8- Doctor is horrified.  He whines, " OOOooooh never hit your mother!" Thank you doctor,

9- I don't remember in what order this all went in, but in the middle of my kids loosing it in the doctor's room, right in the middle of the loudest, whiniest, most aweful part, doctor pipes up with,
"How's discipline working out for you?"

I swear I was just about to join my kids.

I can't believe we made it out of there. The bloody receptionist decided to add a cherry to it all by offering the kids a choice of stickers, oh, and would they like a pencil? Just to give them something more to process and  fight about. (She must have heard us in the room, why didn't she hide the damn things?!)  Finally they are out the door and in the car and I tell them:
"Know what guys? that doctor was writing down everything you said and did in there. He...wrote...it...all...down."
That was all I needed to say to Emma. Her eyes went very round and she got very quiet. Zac was pretty clueless so I told her to explain it to him.
I called my husband, who was just sitting down to a meeting, little did I know, and because my voice was apparantly so shrill, they all got to hear about the doctor's appointment. Apparantly it caused them to  laugh and reminisse.

I got off the phone to hear Emma say to Zac, "So the doctor will Always think we are like that. because he wrote it down. It will be there forever."
Zac: "oh I get it. I thought it was funny, but it actually is not funny."

ding!

Then they both appologized in a very true and heartfelt manner and were sweet and very quiet.

Does anyone else like to look at other drivers?  I do this compulsively and sometimes I see someone crying. This day, I was that crying driver. 10 points! I don't like feeling like the out of control incompetent parent. For a good hour I was racked with feeling like I was going to guarantee my kids were going to be fat idiots because I am a terrible mother. That feeling sucks and is best to get past it somehow.
 Indignation works. Who is this person who is telling me that my active healthy boy is chubby? He is 3! He is very short! The kid has muscle definition all over him, there just isn't much place for all that to go. And discipline? I could go on all day. Forget it. Sometimes these guys freak out. We are working on that. So is everyone else in the world. I reject a snapshot of their lives as a definition.
Every day we communicate and every day we try. Eventually we will figure it out.
If we don't land in jail first.

The most beautiful red pepper from my garden

The summer they learned to swim

however they are convinced the goggles make them swim without which they would sink

looking for trolls

having a lovely chat with our resident decapitated head, named Sarah

waiting for the bus, first day of school

Zac, being in his perferred state

Zac, at 3, riding his bike sans training wheels!

how about a big ol' cup of bleh

Ha! I am posting in a bad mood! I defy the conventions that try to force me to only talk positive and find something cathartic about my silly little life. I don't want my bad mood to be a gateway to being a better mother and person. I want to revel in my misery and ignore all the rest. Oh the kids, you ask? Well they are watching a tv show. ON A SCHOOL DAY and it is Voltron so they will probably reinact the robo-battles on themselves and the dog for the rest of the night. But for now the little boogers are quiet so I can grumpily partake in my afternoon coffee and bitch to myself about lack of sleep and squabbling kids and too many things to do before winter comes and all the balls I have dropped this month and all the poor decisions I have made. Ever. ( looooooong list.)
I was planning on having a real femavore day. I have a bushel of tomatoes waiting for me to can, but when I turned on the water a little while ago to get started, brown horror movie sludge came out. Somebody had turned on the hose and ran the well dry again. So it is off to the hardware store for new salt for the system and jugs of water for us. And the whole time, the kids were really helpful and cheerful, which didn't help my bad mood at all. Emma singing and dancing about water shortages and trying to pick up 40 lb bags of salt is a real bad mood breaker so I had to work extra hard to hold on to my surlyness.
and on top of that, everyone around me is so bloody chirpy today. I am disgusted. Yeesh.
My husband is never in a bad mood so it is totally useless to call him. He will just make fun of me and my poor attitude then force shards of happiness into my grey soul with his sweet disposition. The nerve!
bleh.

 Last weekend we were doing this:

Capt. Zac with Capt. Harris.  We saw two whales on this ride!

Pirate Princess Emma

Arg me hearty, it's Zacamaroo

Pirates everywhere. The kids were relieved they were in costume. That way the REAL pirates would think they were real too and possibly not eat them or "throw them in the hole" as Zac says.

There were many activities at the Eastport Pirate Festival:  parades, bed races, contests, food, music. It is non-stop pirates for a week across Passamaquoddy bay.

It was really fun and very silly.

There was a terrific boat race and fireworks and church suppers and yard sales and dancing, bed races and  and all manner of things. We took the kids on a "Pirate boat ride with real Pirates!"

with Eastport Windjammers. Shops and restaurants and galleries were open  and the Eastport was looking her best in swags and flags.

Everyone was very well behaved and polite, even into the grown-up hours.  We were hoping to witness  some swarthy behavior, but sadly, none.

There was dancing in the streets to a jug band from Portland and an Acadian band from New Brunswick

and dressed like pirates we all had a goodly time.

  Pirates, however are really more about  thievery,grog, scurvy,raping and pillaging, ransom, looting and the clap, right?  Cannon balling and lead balling, fearlessness and desperation, weevil tack, keel hauling, black balling and filth and rum and grog and dead man chests and stuff like that.

Pirates are NSFL.

 We contemplated what it would be like if an actual boatload of actual pirates, Gulf of Aden pirates,say, Or Red Sea Pirates rushed the harbour and ransack the town. Oh how we fake pirates would scatter.

 I do know one or two pirate types and a few more benign anarchist types up there who might be up for it. Not me though, I'd scatter.

We had some lovely walks as regular humans as well. Walking = happiness.

Back and forth and back and forth.

Ladies and offspring walking together. It was so good to share that time with you. "A great refresh" to quote Emma.

After a time like that, then 6 hrs. home turn around, drive to Boston, drop off Daddy at the airport. Get home, unpack car which immediately spews bags, clothes, stuff, shoes, food particles and kids all over the yard, in through the front door and all throughout the house. Instantly. Somehow the kids and I normalize the chaos so they can be up Monday morning  peacefully.

And then the rest of the week happened.

And now it is today.

and we get him back tomorrow. 

Urinary misdemeanors

"MUM! Zac peed on the picnic table and on the bench!" When I go out to inspect the damage, there is a guilty  Zac sitting beside a suspicious looking puddle, the gears visibly turning in his head.

"it's not pee Mum! A very small cloud rained right here! Aber did it! It is juice! Emma did it! It was not me, Mum, Daddy did it! The, the Big Bad Wolf did it!" and there it was settled.  Zac even got upset at the Big Bad Wolf while he cleaned up the pee for not using the potty and making big yucky messes for Zac to clean up.

Zac has some figuring out to do with his flamboyant peeing experiments. He has peed on the kitchen table, on the stairs, on top of the toilet, in a little playing cards box (which he very carefully gave to me, like some sort of rare elixir: "Look Maam, it didn't spill!") He has peed whilst under the laundry basket thinking it was his den and he was a  bear marking his territory.(Which is a repeat offence, as foxes and wolves also den in the laundry basket and mark their territory.)  He has peed on toys,the front steps, the back porch,every sink in our house, tires, ant hills... At least he is starting to keep his clothes on now. The peeing used to accompany a streaking bonanza, with Zac zooming all over the place, naked, stopping only to pee on things. I sought help on the Internet for chrissakes. Peeing on the dog, trying to pee while riding his bike, more successfully peeing while riding his scooter. You might ask where was his mother while he was riding his bike and peeing? I was right there but somehow he ninja peed and I was too late. I suppose all boys pee on things, heck, if I could I would pee on an ant hill too, but the delight he takes in peeing is costing a toll on my sanity. "Other kids don't do this." I think to myself, looking around in puzzlement and despair, and I spy by husband taking a leak off the tree house. I 'm not laying the blame on him per say, but I do remember when Emma was potty training, we noticed her digressing. She would just stand outside, perfectly still, and pee herself. After much coaxing, she explained that she just "Wanted to pee like Daddy" Makes perfect sense.

 Now, I don't want to squelch Zac's foundling male spirit, but this has to end. Next week he is going to preschool and I don't want his teacher calling with reports of  urinary misdemeanors. I tell him that Ninjas always use the potty, remind him that he can pretend to be an bear but he is actually a human and humans need to use the potty.  and he is a great big boy now and if he wants to go to school he will have to use the potty every single time! But really what can you do. I am sure this is a life long joy that the males of the species all share. Now excuse me, I'm going to go pee outside somewhere.