Category Archives: bedtime

January 9, 2012 · 2:38 pm

Word Problems

If you ask Dylan what he likes better – letters or numbers – he’ll say numbers. In honor of Dylan’s blossoming love of math, here are some Runaway Mama word problems.

If Dylan has two race tracks and then receives three new race tracks for his birthday and one new race track for Christmas, and then Mommy hides three of the race tracks in a closet (and fantasizes about setting the closet full of race tracks on fire), how many racetracks does Dylan have to play with?

(Three.  Until Mommy hides another one while Dylan is sleeping.)

If Mommy buys five containers of Play-Doh and Riley opens all of them and refuses to let Mommy put them away and then Mommy realizes the next morning that the Play-Doh was left out all night, how many containers of dry, useless Play-Doh does Mommy have?

(Five. Mommy hates Play-Doh.)

If Mommy buys one box of Dora & Diego paper cups that contains 40 cups and Riley uses 10 paper cups every time he attempts to brush his teeth, how many times will Riley brush his teeth before he runs out of paper cups and Mommy realizes that buying Dora & Diego paper cups for tooth-brushing was a bad idea?

(Four. No paper cups for Riley until he’s five.)

If Mommy sings three songs to Riley at bedtime and then Riley cries and Mommy sings one more song and then Riley cries and Daddy sings one more song and then Dylan asks why no one is singing a song to him and then Riley cries and Mommy sings one more song to each kid, how many total songs do Mommy and Daddy sing while their Chinese food take-out gets cold.

(Seven. Bedtime is a bitch.)

At 6:30am, Dylan decides to build a Lego truck that has 449 pieces and promises to follow the 37 step directions all by himself.   Riley “helps” by putting three rubber tires in his mouth and throwing four teeny, tiny Lego pieces on the floor where they roll under the oven.  Then Riley stinks up the kitchen with a poop while Mommy is on her hands and knees with a flashlight looking at a lot of crumbs but no teeny, tiny Lego pieces under the oven.  Mommy stops looking for the missing Legos to change Riley’s diaper (and to escape Dylan’s whining about the lost Legos), and when she returns to the kitchen, she discovers that Dylan has skipped steps 3-9 in the directions and can’t figure out why the first 18 pieces of the truck don’t fit properly.  At 6:47am, he asks Mommy to take the truck apart so he can start all over again (all by himself) and she chips a nail in the process (Lego nails).  How many cups of coffee does Mommy need to drink to keep her head from exploding?

(At least three.  And if Dylan wants to build Legos after school, with “help” from his brother, coffee will be replaced by Pino Grigio at 5pm).

Math sure can be fun.

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Filed under bedtime, Legos, math

January 3, 2012 · 6:01 pm

Never Say Never

Expect the unexpected.

I’ve always thought this one piece of parenting advice pretty much covered everything.  I was wrong.  There’s another one:

Never say never.

There are a lot of things I never I thought I would do as a parent.

I never thought I would let my kids eat junk food.  I mostly don’t, but Goldfish are pretty popular in my house.  Also, Riley likes dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, both boys savor “enriched macaroni product” shaped like Mater and Lightning McQueen, and if Dylan would agree to eat a Big Mac, I’d go to McDonald’s in the middle of the night.

I never thought I would let my boys pee on trees.  Dylan has a favorite tree in our backyard to pee on, and yesterday, he peed on a tree in the park.  And it wasn’t the first time.  Believe me, it was a better option than the creepy, ant-infested, “CSI” inspired public bathroom.  (If I’ve grossed you out completely, you must not have any sons.  If it helps, even though Dylan wanted to pee on the tree three feet from the monkey bars, I guided him toward a tree with some privacy.)

I never thought I would let my kids watch so much television and so many movies.  And play video games with “shoots” (that’s Dylan-speak for guns and bombs).  And watch YouTube!  Dylan actually watches videos of other people playing video games!

I should have known better than to have such high expectations of my parenting.  After all, I assumed I would have the most well behaved dog on the planet.  And then we met Harry.

I love Harry more than anything, but he’s the most stubborn, poorly behaved dog I’ve ever met.  We were kicked out of puppy school because he distracted the other dogs, and we can’t take him to dog parks because he antagonizes big, old dogs (Harry’s a 20 pound Boston Terrier).   He acts like an alpha male when he’s within 50 feet of a Rottweiler or Pit Bull, and one time he attacked a fully-grown Great Dane!  He has terrible anxiety (like his Mama!) and shakes like a leaf when it rains or thunders.  He’s horrible on a leash, tries to runaway every time the front door opens (like his Mama!), jumps on everyone who enters our house (including small children), pees on the carpet at my sister-in-law’s house every time we take him there, eats food off any plate he can reach and wakes Mike and I up every night to go the bathroom.

On Sunday, Dylan decided he was obsessed with “Star Wars,” which is kind of cool, especially for Mike who saw the movie for the first time when he was five years old.  He wouldn’t go to bed that night until he finished Episode 4.  While I wrestled (literally) with Riley to get him to brush his teeth, Mike came up with a brilliant idea to set up the portable DVD player in Dylan’s bed.  When Riley and I finished our bathroom battle (literally), I discovered Dylan nestled in bed with his blanket and an entertainment center.

“He just wants to finish the movie,” Mike said.  This, like letting the boys sleep in bed with us, didn’t seem like a good idea.  I had a television in my bedroom when I was a kid, but not when I was five. (Mom and Dad, if I’m wrong about this, please feel free to correct me.) It was late and I was tired, so I let it slide and went to sleep thinking (1) we were slipping down a very slippery slope and (2) it was Mike’sfault.

Fast forward to 4:15am.  Dylan woke up crying.  He had a bad dream and wanted to wake up and watch “Star Wars” in the family room. “Absolutely not,” I said. “It’s still sleeping time.” And then I remembered the DVD player was still in his bed, and an unfamiliar (and exhausted) version of myself that had never previously thought her preschool-aged children should watch television in bed said,  “Why don’t you watch it in bed?  Just keep the volume down so you don’t wake up Riley.”

And that was that.  He watched “Star Wars” and I went back to sleep.  Suddenly the DVD player in bed seemed like a really good idea. Today, Riley woke up at 4:45 asking for a breakfast bar, milk and “Dora,” and I know exactly what I’m getting him for his birthday.

Never say never.

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Filed under bedtime, Harry, parenting, sleep