The Narcoleptic Burglar

I am flat out exhausted these days. I can trace the cause of my tiredness to several things including having two small kids, TAKS time at school and a sick little one. Oh, and the tiny fact that my four year old snores like a 65 year old man with severe sleep apnea.

This is not a new problem, but it is getting worse. Connor has always been a loud, mouth breather when he sleeps, constantly snuffling and grunting accompanied by some light snoring. We were all pretty used to it and it sure as heck wasn't bothering him. But I would say over the last few months that the decibel level has increased dramatically, and although our bedrooms are not that far apart, we can still hear him as plain as day through two bedroom doors and down a hallway.

A couple of nights ago it finally woke his dad up. I had been laying there awake for a few minutes listening when my dear husband, who is not known for being especially coherent when awakened from his nightly coma, jumped out of bed and announced frantically, "There's someone in the house! Melissa, there is a man in our house!" He started to tear through our closet for his home defense weapon of choice, a fake samurai sword purchased off eBay in 1999 during an unfortunately nerdy Japanese phase of life. This is a sword whose blade is so dull that the only way it could harm someone is if he bludgeoned them to death with it and they would have to be standing very still for that to happen. Let me just add something here, totally off topic, in defense of Matt's ridiculous faux sword, since I know he is reading this and I don't want to seem like an unsupportive wife. That sword has tasted blood, People, it has experienced violence. It was once used to kill a tiny snake that made the mistake of wandering into our laundry room. Granted, Matt and I both were perched on top of our washing machine totally scared while he killed it with the sword (it was also possibly already dead), but the point is that the sword has been brandished. Anyway, back to our "home invasion". I interrupted Matt's search for the sword (which is locked in the garage by the way) to let him know that the noise he was hearing wasn't coming from an apparently narcoleptic burglar, but from our son. It is just that loud.

We asked the doctor when Connor was about two what he thought the problem was. After looking down his throat and up his nose he declared that his nasal passages were just small and he would grow out of it. Well, I am not buying that. How can a kid who is the size of a six year old only have one tiny part of his body that is growing at a delayed rate and why is that tiny part responsible for such a gigantically annoying noise? I'm taking him back in and this time I want some definitive answers, barring that I am expecting some kind of prescription that will knock me out so that I no longer care. That seems reasonable and I don't even have a medical degree.

My little fish

My goodness, I can't believe how long it has been since I've blogged! We have had the craziest month, but now that our most stressful week of school is over, I feel like I am finally getting a chance to breathe and maybe get caught up on what has been going on with our family!

This week I officially enrolled Connor in "big boy school" for next year. On Ms. Karen's recommendation we looked around for a place that we hoped would challenge him and keep him from getting too bored while waiting around for kindergarten. This was hard for me. I love having my boys at Ms. Karen's and I am constantly amazed by how much they are learning. I also trust her judgement and respect her opinions, so when she said she thought he would benefit from a more challenging environment, I had to admit she was right, although my first impulse was to cling to her and beg her not to make us leave :) Ever.

It all fell into place though, and we found a great little private school where he can go four days a week and then back to Karen's on the fifth. Connor could not be more excited and I could not be more worried. He is thrilled that he gets to take his lunch every day in a real lunch box and carry a backpack that he hopes will be full of homework. He has never seen a cooler classroom or so many "beautiful computers" all in one place. I know my intelligent, self-motivating first born is going to love learning there. So what is my problem?

I have over thought this entire situation and come up with my list of top worries. I worry that his hyper competitiveness is going to kick into overdrive because now instead of one or two kids to compete with, he will have fourteen to compare himself to. I'm worried that the other kids are going to think he is kind of weird because more often than not, his stories at the playground center around the meanness of Pharoah or the awesomeness of the earthquake that freed Paul and Silas from prison (complete with body convulsions to show what he thought it felt like). I am afraid the other four year olds might not think Connor the Evangelist is quite as cool as his Dad and I do.

I worry that he will be too arrogant (he is the best and most amazing person he has ever seen at anything and everything he has ever attempted) and I worry that he will be too hard on himself. Most of all I think I am worried that my craziness is going to make him feel crazy. I am sure he will be showing this blog to his therapist one day :)

My little fish is moving into a bigger pond on his way to the ocean that is kindergarten. I just thank God that he is "most definitely the awesomest swimmer I have ever seen in this whole entire world, Mom."

He'll be ready and as for me, well, I'll get there too.

My sneaky smart son

I hope I don't sound like an annoying braggy parent when I say that we think Connor is pretty smart. Okay, I know that is annoying when parents say that but at least we aren't those parents that credit their child's smartness to themselves. Matt and I can freely admit that we are idiots. Our commentary on Connor's intelligence usually goes something like this,"How did he get so smart, it didn't come from his mom, or it didn't come from his dad." We must have some majorly smart recessive genes that skipped us over and landed in our child.

We are currently working on not letting him know that he is really smart for several reasons. First, I don't want him to ever think that he is better than anyone else for any reason, academically or otherwise. Second, and this reason ties in with the first, I don't want him to realize that his parents are two people he is undoubtedly going to be smarter than. Yes, I realize that we are living on borrowed time with this resolution, but I am going to hang on to my superior intelligence for as long as humanly possible. Luckily at age four, we aren't dealing with any smart alecky-ness yet. It is pretty much a straight forward case of our child is mentally gaining on us and no matter how much sudoku and Words with Friends Matt and I play, we are just not making enough headway.

Unfortunately, his intelligence means that I have to be super specific when laying down the rules around our house. He is literally the most literal kid I have ever met, it is much more likely for something to go over my head than his. For example, right now we are focusing on a "no climbing on chairs" rule at our house. Connor had gotten into the bad habit of pushing over a chair anytime he wanted something he couldn't reach in the kitchen or playroom. Well, this set a dangerous precedent. Before we knew it, baby brother, copycat extraordinaire was pushing and climbing right alongside his big brother minus the superior height and balance. After several real and near miss falls, we had to enact a moratorium on chair climbing. We cut them off cold turkey. If Connor couldn't reach it from his already unnaturally tall height, it wasn't meant to be.

It was going pretty well, after a few reminders and some alone time to think about what they had done wrong, it seemed like the had reconciled themselves to being earthbound. Yesterday, I was in the kitchen and the boys were in the playroom when I heard some weird grunting and talking. I walked in to discover Connor trying to hoist his little brother up above his head in order to make him grab something from the top shelf of our 6 foot high bookcase (which luckily is screwed into the studs). Connor kept saying, "Reach Mushy, get the firetruck puzzle. Try harder Mushy!! I need it. Use your arms!" Hudson, in true Mushy fashion,.

was just waving his arms around above his head and yelling out, "Kay, kay, kay guy, kay!" He wasn't even close to the firetruck puzzle and I am positive that he had no idea what he was doing up there. He is just game for anything that his brother suggests without thought to his own personal safety.

The pair of them looked ridiculous. Connor weighs 39 pounds soaking wet, but he is scrappy, and I was a little impressed that he managed to get at least half of Hudson's body lifted above shoulder level. But feats of strength aside, I told him to set his brother down and come have a conference with me. I asked him why he thought it was okay to use his brother as a human claw to reach things on high shelves. His response, "Well, mommy you told us that we couldn't climb on chairs anymore." And so I did. I completely forgot to consult with my attorney and add in more specific conditions such as, no using your brother as your own personal robot arm. His closing argument on his way to the time out step: "But Mommy, Mushy wanted to help me." Yes son, your one year old brother who likes to eat ketchup out of a bowl with a spoon would agree to jumping off our house if his big Bubby thought it would be fun. That didn't help his case.

So, did he literally break our rule? Nope. But if the devil is in the details, Mommy is now in possession of the pitch fork. I did, however, have to give him some secret points for creativity.

Midnight Streaker

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Hudson is waist deep in a very annoying habit right now. Streaking. On more mornings than I can count, I have gone into his room to get him out of the crib and he is completely naked and I am almost 97% sure he didn't go to bed that way.

This habit is frustrating for me because it has gone on for so long. I thought it would be a fast phase that he would quickly pass through, but he has developed a taste for the feel of a breeze on bare skin. The first few times, I really just thought it was a fluke because it wasn't happening with any regularity. I was so naive. It wasn't happening regularly because he wasn't good at it yet! Hudson's bedtime routine is bath, pajamas and then he hits the crib. We shut the door by 7:30 p.m. and we don't see or hear from him again for 11-12 solid hours. I thought this was awesome. But now that I have really started to think about it, I might have been bragging a little to much about his sleeping ability. I am now fairly sure that he only sleeps until 3:00 a.m. and then spends the next three or four hours wrangling himself out of his clothes and diaper.

I have tried several things, including the snap up/zip up one piece pajamas (which he looks adorable in). I have witnessed with my own eyes that tiny little toddler pull those footie pajamas apart at the chest like the Incredible Hulk. I did temporarily stump him with fitted long sleeve shirts. I thought I could beat him by putting him a pajama top so tight that it could double as a tourniquet. It worked for a while, several mornings I came in to discover Hudson naked except for what look like a shrug (shout out to the fashions of 2004). He could get it over his head, he just failed at freeing his arms. He would also be sweating from the effort. There is no one more determined than my one year old,though, when he has decided to get naked. Soon the long sleeve shirts also hit the floor beside his crib. I even tried turning his one piece PJ's backwards. I really stressed about this though because he looked like he was in a blue fleece straight jacket and I was afraid I was damaging him psychologically. He just looked at me with pity, his eyes quietly saying, "Amateur."

Now on to the diaper, Hudson absolutely cannot resist pulling off his diaper. As soon as he is pantless, that diaper is living on borrowed time. His big thing right now is recognizing and throwing away trash. Or "tash" as he so lovingly calls it. That is his favorite thing to do and he is constantly grabbing things like socks or his brother's underwear and racing to the trash can calling out in a self-important voice, "tash, tash, ok guy, tash." He is hugely proud of his ability to throw things away. Since he is a very smart boy and has seen me throw away countless diapers, he now associates all diapers, clean or dirty as trash and it is his life's ambition to get them off his body and to the nearest trash receptacle. My sit down talk with him, in which I tried to explain that diapers cost money and our last name is not Rockefeller didn't have much of an impact, so I am on to plan B. Duct tape. Yes, I realize it is a large leap to go from calm, reasonable chat to duct taping my kid's diaper on, but it is a leap I am willing to take. I actually got the idea indirectly from our babysitter, Katie (sorry Katie). She is a triplet and the boys and I were invited over to her house for their recent birthday (can you imagine triplets? Now that would be a blog). Their mom Janice, one of my good friends from school, was showing off all their adorable baby photos when something caught my eye. In one photo, they all had their diapers held on by duct tape. Hello jackpot! That night I had Matt bring in the duct tape and I reinforced that little Houdini's diaper like nobody's business. I imagine he spent half the night trying to work that bad boy off, but to no avail.

It took a pair of Connor's safety scissors to get him out of it the next morning, but it was one heck of a victory for Mom.

Final score: Mom 01-Kids 1000

I'm totally gaining on them!

Tonight's secret ingredient is.....I can't remember.

I love the Food Network. I mean, I really love it. Without a doubt, it is my favorite channel and I can turn it on at just about any time of day and be mesmerized for hours.

Paula, Bobby, Ina and the rest of the gang are some of my dearest friends, they just don't know it. Many a time, I will be telling Matt what he believes to be a boring teacher story and he will interrupt to say, "Wait a minute, is this a Food Network story?" Then, I've lost him completely. He ranks Food Network stories lower than teacher stories.

When Matt and I were newlyweds, I was a recent graduate and didn't have a job yet and to be perfectly honest, most of my "job hunting" entailed emailing out resumes while watching Food Network and Dr. Phil. I would spend hours watching my favorites whip up different recipes, then in the afternoons (after Dr. Phil) I would go to the grocery store and buy all the ingredients to make a fabulous dinner. It was impulsive and madcap and we had never eaten better. But, it couldn't last. Matt finally set me down and highly "encouraged" me to get a job. He was gaining weight from all the rich, luxurious food and more importantly, he was sick and tired of being psychoanalyzed by his wife based on what she had learned from that day's episode of Dr. Phil (who he strongly believes might have earned his doctorate online or from a third world country).

Now fast forward six years. I still love to cook, but the quality of my culinary endeavors has been on the decline. On paper, it makes no sense. Based on the countless hours of avid Food Network viewership, I have amassed enough knowledge to earn an honorary degree from Le Cordon Bleu. In fact, I even say the word culinary like a professional. "Cool-in-ary" It all just falls apart in the practicum and I know exactly why, my children have stricken me with a severe form of ADD. I cannot finish a grocery list, let alone an entire meal without 20 distractions.

When Matt is home during dinner prep time, he is in charge of keeping the natives entertained, namely Hudson. This sometimes works. This week, for example, Matt and Hud were hanging out in the playroom while Connor was drawing on the back porch with sidewalk chalk. All was good. After a few minutes though, Connor started coming in and asking Matt to help him with something outside. Matt agreed and all three boys went out back to trace a chalk outline of Kenny. (??) While his Daddy was distracted, little man decided to sneak back into the house and had taken all the knobs off my stove and hid them in the pantry while my back was turned unloading the dishwasher. It took me 15 minutes to find those stupid knobs because he is an exceptionally good hider. It amazed me that in that short amount of time my sons could turn the back porch into a crime scene and render my stove useless. When Matt isn't home to be a buffer, things are so much worse. I am so distracted, it is a miracle we eat at all. One evening, I made a homemade apple pie from scratch, it came out of the oven looking delicious. We were so giddy with excitement that we danced around the kitchen while Hudson yelled, "Eaaattt!" Our bubble of happiness was quickly deflated, however, when we discovered I had left out one essential ingredient, sugar. That little slip up is enough to make a Barefoot Contessa throw on her shoes and head home.

So, I am just going to keep watching the Food Network, after all they are certainly not to blame. I will be anxiously awaiting the day when my mommy ADD wears off, I just pray that it isn't permanent. On a good note, my crock pot is really earning it's keep, at least when I remember to turn it on.

She ain't heavy, she's my cousin

When my brothers and I were growing up we spent a lot of time, especially in the summer, with our cousins. Even though they were not always our most geographically close friends, we had some of our best times with them and still do as adults. So when Connor was two and a half and I was pregnant with Hudson, we were excited to find out that the boys would be getting a cousin of their very own. This was a big deal to me, because I wanted my boys to have the same connection to family that I did and for a while I was a little worried that they were going to spend a big chunk of their childhood cousin-less.

So, just 10 weeks before Hudson arrived we had a little girl make her grand entrance into our family. I was so excited that they would be so close in age and I just knew that they were going to be the best of pals. Once Marlee arrived, someone was immediately smitten and that someone was Connor Zeke Hill. He was already in high anticipation mode for his own baby and he was giddy with excitement about Miss Marlee Van. He immediately decreed that she was his sister. He knew that he was getting a brother and this is the closest we had ever come to a baby girl, so that was the conclusion he came to and for quite a while there was no convincing him otherwise. He just loved on her and she was great practice for him to get ready for Hud's arrival. But I still just knew that once Marlee and Hudson were toddlers, they would gravitate to one another because of their ages and placement as the babies of the family. Well, that hasn't exactly happened.

Marlee and Connor are best buds. She is absolutely crazy about him and he is just as in love with her. Guess who is the odd man out? It was pretty clear early on that Connor and Marlee have very compatible personalities, despite their age difference. Marlee is very smart and can really keep up with her big cousin. She was an early talker and has a great vocabulary that is easy to understand. Hud, while also very smart, talks like a little caveman. As the baby of the family, he has no real need to talk, Connor does it for him. "Mommy, Mushy would like a sandwich." or "Mushy feels like he needs two hugs and a diaper." It became pretty obvious that Hudson's role in this trio would be as lookout to cover for whatever schemes Marlee and Connor come up with. I think he is okay with this as we often refer to Hudson as a "party of one." He is always pretty happy and can find plenty of trouble on his own.

Marlee is hilarious. She is such a smart, sassy little thing. I love that she is a total girly girl despite Cullin's efforts to butch her up. She loves to have her hair up in rollers and several times I have seen her fake shaving her legs in the bathtub. She is obviously way more mature than Mushy :)

I am not too worried about Hud though, he has another cousin to try and win over, Marlee's little brother Blu. Now every baby we see, Hudson calls, "My Bu?" in a really sweet and hopeful voice. I am keeping hope alive that Blu won't be totally turned off by Hudson's sweet habit of over loving and accidental squishing. I am determined to find that kid a blood relative best friend! I am just going to put it out there that if I can't convince my niece or nephew to be Hudson's friend, someone is going to have to pop out another candidate and it's not going to be me.

I'm just sayin'.

That Elusive Miss X (Chromosome)

One of the most common questions I hear from people is, "So are you guys going to try for a girl?" I find this hilarious for several reasons, but before I get into all that, let me first just say that it never bothers me. It is totally something I have said many times myself, sometimes to complete strangers. It is just an irresistible statement that possesses even the most logical and level headed of people.

First of all, the implication that you can try for a particular gender really amuses me. I think this is due in part to the fact that I often have the same sense of humor as an adolescent boy halfway down his road to manhood. I know that the nice people that say this to us are not really implying a literal meaning, but could you imagine if that was really how it worked? Um, yes. I'd like to order a baby girl please. I decided to give my sweet husband a hard time the last time we heard this together. We were at a Hill family get together and one of his extended family members asked that magic question, "So are y'all going to try for a girl?"Before Matt could give our usual lengthy and eloquent response of, "No," I turned to him and said, "Now wait just a minute. Are you telling me that you weren't even trying for a girl last time? I am shocked and a little hurt because you promised that you were going to bring your girl baby, A game. Thanks to you Matt, I am now outnumbered 3 to 1! You owe me a girl!"

At the time I thought this was hilarious and in retrospect, I still do. Matt was not as amused.

The second thing that completely baffles me about this question: Who in their right mind sees me and my children, out and about, maybe shopping or playing at the park and thinks to themselves, "You know there is something missing from this picture, I just can't put my finger on it." I imagine that they closely observe my four year old who knows everything and rarely shuts his mouth, and my one year old who could scale an 8 foot fence without blinking an eye. Then the epiphany will hit! They will exclaim,"I know what that attractive, intelligent woman is missing..... it's another child!" Insert my hysterical laughter here. I do not know what causes strangers in public to assume that I could handle another kid, except maybe the same morbid fascination that causes people to slow down to look at automobile accidents. Let me just put it out there, the Hill family is not adding anymore family members, male, female or otherwise. As much as I love my sons, and I really do, I strongly believe that the addition of another baby (which would undoubtedly be a boy) to the mix of our family might be the proverbial straw that severs my often fragile connection to order, control and sanity.

Plus, I think people underestimate the responsibility of caring for the imaginary members of our family. Why, just the other night I had to give an imaginary lecture and spanking to Kenny because he said a word so bad that Connor wouldn't even dare repeat it (Thank God).

The whole deal was highly weird and exhausting.

So I get my little girl fix from my niece Marlee, a smart, sassy little princess who I am secretly training to be exactly like her Auntie M. Insert maniacal laughter here. In the meantime, while I wait for her to grow old enough to help me achieve world domination, I guess I will just take my chances and keep floating around in all the testosterone, keeping my fingers crossed that one day I will wash up on a beach in Fiji.