Hug Twice

CJ loves gymnastics. Every day, without fail, he asks me “‘Nastics now?” Some days he asks more than once. Some days he asks every hour it seems.

Tomorrow is his last gymnastics class. With how much he loves it, I would not hesitate to sign him up for another session or even a regular program of lessons, except that I cannot stand it.

My displeasure with the program and the school itself is well documented, both here and directly at the school. There is no way I am paying for him to continue classes there. It is poorly run without adequate supervision for the number of children present, and there is way too much downtime where the majority of kids do nothing related to gymnastics at all. But enough about that, because, as I said, CJ loves it anyway.

And therein lies my dilemma.

A few months ago, we started CJ in taekwondo to try and improve his concentration and discipline and attention span. After a few classes, it was clear he was just not ready for it yet, so we pulled him out for now. He asked a few times about kicking school but forgot about it rather quickly. The same can be said for his soccer classes this summer. He enjoyed them, but detached easily. And I don’t think he’s given a thought to the fact he hasn’t had swim classes in over a year.

But gymnastics he will not soon forget, I think. It may be time for me to look for another gymnastics school in the area. I want CJ to do what he loves, but not at that school. He deserves better.

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When I took CJ to gymnastics this past week, I left the diaper bag in the car as I always do. The first class or two, I brought it in with me, but Alexa hasn’t done anything interesting in her diaper in public for months and months, and CJ never does, so I’ve been very diaper-bag-lax. Once CJ goes out on the floor I trek Alexa and I upstairs to watch from the balcony and have to bring all our stuff with us, so I try to limit the amount of stuff I have to carry as much as possible.

Well, of course, this strategy was bound to bite me eventually, and that day, it did. Right before CJ’s class was about to start, I hear the tell-tale sounds from Alexa that her diaper just got interesting, followed closely by a distinctly unpleasant smell. Once CJ went out on the floor, I trekked Alexa out to the car to rescue the diaper bag, and brought her into the restroom to deal with the damage.

Well, the diaper bag was pathetic at best. I did find a diaper for her - a size 4, and she has been in 5s for at least a month - and a shirt a size too small. No pants. And… no wipes.

I hadn’t yet assessed the diaper damage so I didn’t know if the no pants would be an issue, but I could already guarantee the no wipes would be a problem.

I looked around the restroom, and grabbed a bunch of towels, wet them, rung them out, and spread them out on the edge of the changing table. I’ll say one good thing about the gymnastics studio - for some reason, they have a great changing table in the women’s restroom. Padding and rails and everything. I then grabbed a handful of kleenex and laid them out for drying off purposes. Then I stripped Alexa down and found out the pants were unscathed, but the onesie… not so lucky.

I changed her diaper, and the wet towels worked passably and the tissues did a good job of drying her off. But the new shirt in the diaper bag wouldn’t go over her head. I tried and tried but no dice. So I washed off what I could of the old shirt and stuck it back on her. There’s only so much I can do. I dressed her the rest of the way and off we went, almost as good as new.

I still need to restock that diaper bag.

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On Saturday, the cable company came to our house to fix our malfunctioning On-Demand service. Well, that’s what we thought they were doing. In fact, they recently changed the On-Demand so that if you don’t subscribe to that channel, you don’t get the channel On-Demand either. Which, I will admit, is fair. Except they took away our Disney channel On-Demand and we do, in fact, subscribe to a package that includes the Disney channel. I called them originally when I couldn’t get “Little Einsteins” On-Demand to work, and I guess they couldn’t figure out over the phone that they had without telling us blocked our access to it. So they came to the house. Too bad for them. I understand that since we don’t subscribe to Noggin, we can’t get it On-Demand, but I’m still not happy about the whole Disney thing.

But they’re not budging, so oh well. I will miss On-Demand, it was the simplest way to control the amount of TV that CJ watches and avoid commercials. But, I digress.

Since they left, we succeeded in losing the remote to the cable box. We were pretty sure we had it after they left, but as time went on, we became less and less sure. Could they have taken it with them accidentally? I didn’t want to call them and look foolish but at the same time… maybe. The last clear memory I had of seeing the remote was Alexa crawling across the family room with it while I was in the kitchen making dinner (the rooms are connected). Ever since CJ figured out how to order pay-per-view movies we have kept the remote out of reach on the refrigerator, but I didn’t feel like listening to Alexa scream right that second when I took it away and my hands were dirty so I told myself I’d take it later and let her make off with it. I think that was Saturday, but I guess it could have been Friday.

I don’t remember rescuing it, so I became convinced that she hid it. Matt remained convinced that maybe the cable repairman took it out of spite for his useless service call.

To try and find it, I thoroughly cleaned the entire family room. I even arranged all the shoes on their rack and hung up all the coats in the front closet that somehow pile themselves on a chair throughout the week. Alexa crawled around my feet as I was working, and as I hung the last coat in the closet, I heard Matt say “Hey! Where’d you get that?”

And there was Alexa, sitting next to the shoe rack, chewing on the remote to the cable box.

All I can figure is that she stuck it in a shoe on Saturday while I was making dinner so she could play with it later. I knew she knew where it was.

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I don’t ask for much, I think. Just a wee bit of forethought when deviating from the normal routine is really all I ask. I’m sure Matt would disagree if he were to weigh in on this but I honestly don’t think I ask for much. Just simple consideration.

The worst time to find out that the wipes container is empty is when you’ve opened up a diaper that exploded through two layers of clothing and it is all you can do to keep your daughter from rolling away from you covered in poop. Seriously. Refill the wipes container if you happen to empty it. And if you’re not going to refill it, don’t move the new box of wipes from where it been all week to a new and random location so I have to hunt for it carrying a giggling child covered in excrement who thinks this new game is the best game ever. But don’t worry… revenge is sweet.

And I would like to add that the worst time to find out that your spouse didn’t bring in the empty garbage bin from the driveway is when you hit it with your car. It gets dark early, and I know it is cold out and you don’t like being out in the cold, but better you when you get home from work than me with two kids in tow. Or at least tell me you didn’t do it so I can do it when I leave for taekwondo class that evening. Since there is no streetlight right near our house, the brown container blends into the dark street and… bam! when I pulled out of the driveway. Lucky for all of us neither the car or the bin was damaged.

Just simple consideration. Really, that is all I ask.

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This past week, two of my posts were included in carnivals around the web. I really enjoyed reading the other posts in each of these carnivals so I wanted to highlight a few of my favorites from each one.

First off, the Carnival of Family Life was in Australia at Imaginif, and included my post No One Told Me This Stuff in Parenting School. I was really excited to be included among such great entries such as:

• Fiveberries In Texas: Shopping. With kids. Fun. I have to remember this, if I ever dare to bring my kids shopping. I’ll get a lot more done this way!
• Mama’s Coffee Break: One of Those Moms. I feel like that a lot. I need to meet more people. Maybe who don’t have kids even.

And at the Carnival of SAHMs at Adentures of an Awesome (Sometimes) Mother (what a great name for a blog!), my post Enough was included. Yes, my son has definitely had enough. Heh. I especially enjoyed this entry:

• More4Kids: A Typical Day in the Life of a SAHM. My kids are smaller so they don’t both leave the house all day, but a lot of this post was true for me. It is a very big juggling act!

I’ll chime in next weekend with this week’s carnivals and my picks from them! Thanks for reading.

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