The winner is! –> Genevieve! Please email me with your address, Genevieve. creative at tiffanyard.com

On account of the homeschooling, every week we sit down and write out questions that we want to try and answer this week. It’s neat to see what’s on the boys’ minds even though it’s not like they ever keep it a secret.

Anyway. Here are a few of my own dang questions for this week:
Why does it take the dog 15 minutes to find the perfect spot when we’re outside, but indoors it only takes him two seconds?

What is the exact ratio of puppy accidents to three-year-old pee accidents? And what are appropriate things to say when the three year old suggests ridiculously harsh punishments for when the puppy has an accident — when the child is wet at that exact very same instant?

Why won’t Michael’s admit that custom framing only costs half of what they say it does? Why the ever-present 50% off sale?

Assuming the presence of one puppy and one three year old with a combined pee accident rate of 1/30 minutes: at a mopping rate of 16 square feet per minute, is it possible to mop 700 square feet before somebody pees on the mopped area?

Why don’t the Feed the Children people solve the world hunger crisis by paying for all you can eat buffets for all of those kids? They wouldn’t have to really set up buffets; the simple act of paying for the buffet instantly makes a child go from starving to not hungry at all. Not that I’m bitter about spending seven dollars on a single baby carrot and half a dinner roll.

How in hell does the post office sort and deliver all of the mail without at some point looking at the bins and crazy machines and conveyers and going, “You know what? This is a huge hassle.” and giving up?

How long does the dog cry after we leave the apartment? He’s always quiet when we come home. Did he whine the whole time and stop when he heard us approach? And how much money should we slip under our neighbor’s door as an apology for being the assholes with the noisy kids and the tweeting bird who went out and got a crying dog?

What will happen to my business if being a nerd goes back to being horribly uncool? Can I just rewrite the copy on my products to turn them into mean-spirited gag gifts?

How do kids have so much more energy than the adults who are responsible for their safety and survival? How did that possibly evolve?

I’m constantly accused of being mean, even when I’m being so nice that it’s on the news that there’s this mom in Atlanta who is so nice that OMG we should call the news.

But today they were right. I was mean.

For the last three weeks my boys have been the dueling banjos of obnoxiousness. They’ve been cramming otherwise lovely days with whining, fighting, hassling, nagging, and/or fit throwing. Their hobby has become making things hard and filling every moment with words that point out my errors or question the accuracy of whatever I just said. I love my kids so much and I normally never want to get away from them but this month it’s been too much and I want to pull out my eyes and stick them in my ears because oh my god dudes, stop saying words.

Tonight when the puppy ran to the door to let me know that he needed to pee, then sat quietly while I found my shoes it hit me that holy shit. The dog is so much more civilized than my children. He is better tuned to what I expect from him, and he only understands like four words in English. Then when I came back inside and the boys were fighting over nothing — like actual NOTHING — I growled at them. RAWWWWWRRRRRRRR!!!!!

Then we had a talk. Instead of our usual Full House sappy-music talks, this one was more like all those shows where the coach yells at everyone about how much they suck at playing football and how as of this moment they are going to stop sucking at football and start getting the ball in the thing and they are going to like it, by God and if they don’t score points against the other team, the coach is going to take all of their Star Trek toys away and donate them to goodwill.

That’s how it went down. I was so fed up that I didn’t let them pick their bedtime stories. Instead I picked a story and declared it MY story. They were horrified, even though I let them listen and I read stories that they like — it was the principle of the thing. They each are supposed to get a story, and it matters a lot which story is whose. I’m not good at nonrandom punishments. Need to work on that. I was raised by people who made me listen to Bob Wills music when I missed curfew. For serious.

So! Tonight Kevin and I are going through the dog training book with a highlighter and a sharpie, replacing “dog” with “son” and tomorrow we’re going to reintroduce our children to the basic rules of society. It’s going to be a fun weekend! For those of us without Star Trek toys on the line.

oh my dear holy goodness, I owe you all a giveaway. Today. I will pick a winner from the great dog naming post to.day. Sorry, we got sidetracked by puppydom and then there was this thing with this birthday and, well basically we suck at everything. I’m also behind on updating my website and blog and posting photos and eating food today so you know. Don’t take it personally.

The puppy has discovered the joys of early mornings and as a result so have I – the dawn’s pink light is beautiful and energizing. One of us is being sarcastic, but that’s okay. It’s part of the deal with having a puppy. I do wish Kevin could do some of the bathroom runs, but Roux has absolutely decided that he is my dog and so he’ll only pee or poop outside for me which is a lot of pressure. I’m going to have something added to my life insurance policy to cover some kind of catheter system for him in case anything should ever happen to me.

The name Roux has taken root, though in my brain I still secretly call him Venkman. Back off man. He’s a scientist.

But Roux is a great dog name because when it’s time to call the dog you can say Roorooorooroorooorooroo! And it sounds like the dog equivalent of Suuuu-eeeeeeepig. It works well. He comes racing towards us, if only to decide whether we’re calling him over for something fun.

We’re still working on the part where he comes all the way TO us all the time, but hey. He’s five months old, doesn’t speak a word of English, and already he minds way better than either of my children.

I read this crazy dog training book called The Loved Dog. The writer’s premise is that most dog trainers are asshole bullies because they force or coerce dogs into doing things they don’t want to do. She says that the humane way to teach dogs anything is to make them WANT to do things your way. How do you do that? You make a party for them whenever they do things right. She actually says that: make a party. So we’re going through lots of streamers and confetti here lately. When the dog does wrong you don’t punish him, you just make a slightly less elaborate and interesting party. You just have a few friends over and offer them drinks but no streamers or confetti. If he does something super bad like tear up the couch or poop in your shoe then instead of a party you make an insurance seminar with boring powerpoints for the puppy to watch.

Thanks to all the party-making, he’s slowly getting the hang of our crazy people rules and customs except for the one about sleeping through the night without having to pee. Not that I can talk about that one; I haven’t made it through the night since I first got pregnant nearly seven years ago.

But! I’m in a celebratory mood because!
1. The very cool Discover This catalog will soon be carrying my products
2. This week my etsy shop hit 1,000 sales
3. HOLY PASTA, LOOK AT THIS! They’re going to change it at the end of the week so please click that link soon. And tell all your friends hey! I know that lady!

So! Everyone, make a party! Woooooo!

Giveaway winner this afternoon. Also, photos from the birthday. And heck, maybe some from Christmas that I never posted. And maybe halloween.

Did you know that “Birds are great” is not a birthday theme that generates high enough demand to warrant the attention of the makers of cups, napkins, balloons, plates, pinatas, and/or cute oversized cardboard cutouts? I was as shocked as you are. That didn’t stop me from spending too much on party supplies, but when I got home it took a lot of work to force the party into the general bird shape that Nicolaus wanted. But like with the halloween costumes, I reminded myself that I don’t have to make this worthy of a magazine. It doesn’t even have to be recognizable to adults. All I have to do is blow the mind of a six year old who doesn’t have access to a television and has no idea what serious birthday parties are like.

So! Scrapbook paper on the front door that said “Welcome to the BIRD SANCTUARY.”
Cut out paper birds taped all over the place.
Streamers streamed about.
Cupcakes with bird pictures sticking out of them.
Beautiful and realistic speckled plastic eggs – hooray for the insanely early commercialization of Easter!
Many fake birds from the floral department
Tiny wooden bird houses for the kids to paint
Little wooden bird puzzles
Like a thousand glow sticks because of awesome.

When it was time for the party, Kevin went and got four pizzas and several liters of generic beverages while I threw all of our piles of clutter into our bedroom, closed the door, and put our least annoying soundtrack of birds in the rainforest on the CD player. Guests arrived. We ate pizza. Lit candles. Sang happy birthday. Presents.

Then he skipped off to his room to play with the other kids, leaving the adults to sit in the living room and visit and wonder why we thought the kids would want to paint birdhouses or play games or do anything other than play noisy screaming games in the bedroom. And also – why are we in here by ourselves listening to a danged sounds of nature CD?

But it was a great time. Nicolaus spent the hours afterward in a kind of gooey appreciative daze. He and Graham slept until nearly noon the next day. Sunday was the closest to hung over I’ve ever seen these two; my god they were grumpy. This is where my dad would say, “No. Hitler was grumpy. They were downright ornery.”

But a good day of bike riding and a good night’s sleep seemed to even him out a little. I mean, how can he sustain grumpiness in the face of such blatant awesomeness? The kid has never seen this many presents in his life. Over the course of the week he acquired:
A digital camera from my parents
A mini-workshop tool from us
A bike from my sister in law & co. It was my nephew’s but he barely rode it — it looks brand new. It’s exactly what Nicolaus has been wanting for months.
A large flip-chart of the human body, which Graham is trying hard to claim for his own.
A four-headed plastic dragon, very fierce
This jellyfish aquarium, which he loves with all of his jellyfish-loving heart. He is very upset that we will not let him bring it everywhere with him. I had no idea that he even liked jellyfish, but it turns out that jellyfish – even fake ones – have personalities and feelings that I am wrong to dismiss lightly.
A $50 use-anywhere gift card from Kevin’s parents.

So tonight I took him to spend the $50. We drove to a nearby suburb which has every lame suburbia chain store crammed right together, all on one road. This made his shopping spree very efficient; in less than an hour he bought a harmonica, a pop-gun for Graham, a dreidel, a manly purse for his camera, a bag of chocolate eyeballs, a fork, a spoon, a butter knife, a tiny red ceramic teacup, a flip-fish game, a plastic light-up heart shaped dog tag which he is pretending is a magic stone, two squirt guns, an assortment of interesting polished rocks, an invisible ink pen that came with a locking journal, and a bell for his bicycle.

Even though he was unfairly denied his right to spend his money on the one thing every young child should own (this) he deftly honed in on $47 worth of things that sum up the importance of being Nicolaus and the fun of being six. And even though I’ve resisted any sort of gun toys for the last six years, I am quite looking forward to tomorrow’s squirt gun fight. Of which I will be the winner! Which sums up the fun of being thirty-five.

Do you live in Texas? With a television? Then you know what I mean when I say that my day was the Jim Adler of days. And really, the whole week has been like Jim Adler. The tough, smart week who will HAMMER AND HAMMER to get me exactly what I deserve.

It’s two in the morning and even though I wanted a nap since eleven this morning, I’m awake because listening to the sound of no one crying or needing anything is too delicious and perfect. If I sleep I’ll miss all this amazing peace.

Every once in awhile there’s some kind of perfect storm in my kid’s brain and he — I’m too drained to describe it. He requires ALL of the energy, ALL of the attention ALL all all of everything, which would maybe be workable if I didn’t have this pesky other child, plus a dog who will pee under the dining room table if I look away for fifteen seconds. Nicolaus is always a little intense, but it’s weeks like this that make me realize that wow. We are so lucky most days because most days he is a calm blue ocean. Because whenever this – this whatever this is – happens, suddenly parenting feels like one of those hostage-standoff movies, the kind that looked like a rollicking and heartfelt comedy in the previews but turned out to be dark and not funny at all, the kind of emotionally exhausting movie that makes you walk out into the bright sunlight in a daze feeling much more than two hours older.

What?

I try hard to remember that my personal tagline applies to other people to. You have one right? A mental tagline? You need one! Because what if you ever become a corporation suddenly and you’ll be caught off guard having never given one thought to your branding. Mine is: No matter how difficult and annoying it is to be around me, I promise it is much more annoying to actually BE me.

It needs paring down. There’s no graceful way to put a sentence like that under a logo on letterhead.

So that applies to our angry young man. As worn out as we all are, he is more exhausted and frustrated. As helpless and lost and inadequate as we all feel – well, he feels the same way except about us. He’s made it very clear that we are the worst parents he has ever had.

Some of his moods worry me. But some of it I honestly can’t take too seriously. Last night he accused me of loving the dog more than I love my children.

Which I answered: Of course I do, duh. Didn’t you hear me offer you two to the guy in trade for the puppy? Besides, the puppy is way better behaved and in a much better mood than either of you.

So he burst into dramatic tears because you ADMITTED IT. You think the dog is better than us!!

Well he IS. By every possible measure. That’s not my fault.

But even though I don’t love my children, 50-100% of whom are angry and bitter at any given point about the crappy mom they got stuck with, we are working on some cool things for them this week. I cleared out their closet and am converting it into a playhouse/space ship. They are thrilled with it, even though it looks pretty lame so far. But it has stations and warning signs and a red alert button – so yeah. They like it a lot.

Which is good because they’ll both have to sleep in there once I convert the rest of their bedroom into a doggy paradise for Roux. Who’s a good boy who will get the top bunk because I love him so much? Who is!