Things I never thought I'd say to my child

No, I don't think you should smell your penis.

Please, stop talking and just watch Rachel Ray.

You're right. I do have hair there and you don't.

I don't care if Daddy does it and even louder. If I catch him, he'll get a time out too.

Highlights of motherhood

I NEED TO POOP. I NEED TO POOP NOW.

So go to the bathroom and call me when you need me.

I NEED TO GO NOW. YOU COME WITH ME.

No, go by yourself and call me when you need to wipe.

Shawn Joaquin dashes to the bathroom while I sit on the floor putting a toy back together. Suddenly he's in front of me, bare bottomed and bent over with his butt two inches from my nose.

HERE IT IS!

Oh happy day

Finally, for the first time in 19 days, we're having a happy day. I found myself having the surreal experience of lunch with two kids at IKEA, eating Swedish meatballs and listening to "Hungry Like The Wolf" while sitting on clean-lined, white, modern furniture and watching trucks go by on the 80 overpass. Shawn Joaquin was in heaven — watching trucks while eating meat and with the allure of funky plastic toys a few yards away and Mama not paying too much attention to the Interloper. I had a cringe moment when I realized I had given Madelena a french fry to keep her content and extend our few minutes of joy, a food choice denied to Shawn Joaquin until just a few months ago and even then only a few at a time. But given the copious amounts of fruit, egg whites and other healthy treats she's normally eating or smearing in her hair, it seemed worth the price. Plus she's already suffering from the second-child syndrome, being allowed to eat non-organic foods and dirt and having fewer photos taken, her baby book still sitting in its box on a shelf somewhere next to the plug outlet covers and hand-mixer for food.

As I later pushed my two kids in the cart, Madelena in the seat and Shawn Joaquin enjoying a usually forbidden ride in the basket, I was overwhelmed with love and pride in my beautiful, happy and exceptional children. I had one of those moments when I absolutely knew that my children were far superior to any other child in the store. It's one of those moments that every parent has at some point during any given week or month and will never admit - the absolute certainty that their child is the most intelligent, attractive, likeable, kind and loving person in the world. We look at other children and know they have great qualities, but there is a secret part of us we can't reveal to anyone but our partners that feels all other children pale in comparison, their eyes less glowing or their heart less open or their passion less evident.

As we got back to the car, Shawn Joaquin grabbed onto my arm. "Mama, I had a GREAT time with you. You're my BEST friend." Perhaps Hurricane Shawn Joaquin has finally passed, and left in its stead my loving and sweet boy after all.

This is your wake up call

Our day began at 4am with a screaming banshee that woke me by beating my head with tiny fists while yelling, "Get in the office! Get in the office!" and jumping up and down. At first I thought it was a client or coworker who had somehow sneaked either into my dreams or into my house, so dead asleep was I when the assault began. Then I realized it was my loving son, who had last seen me (at 9pm, within view of his bedroom) in Gregg's office, and he was more than a bit chagrined to find me elsewhere at 4am. Shawn Joaquin has never done well with change, but we had hit a new low as part of the I-Hate-You-For-Disrupting-My-Entire-Life-Now-Hug-Me-NOW-NOW-NOW syndrome. After 15 minutes of hysterics, including screaming like a madman when the bathroom light was turned on while groping blindly for the switch and smacking me at the same time (so much more complicated than rubbing your tummy and patting your head at the same time - I am, in retrospect, rather proud) we began to consider tranquilizers for either him or us. In desperation, Gregg followed him to his room and slept on the floor to placate Shawn Joaquin without feeling like a total patsy by sleeping in the bed with him. Somehow this seemed a Pyrrhic victory, as proven by his back pain later.

At dawn, we tried to discuss the situation with Shawn Joaquin.

Me, firmly: Shawn Joaquin, you can't come running into our room screaming and hitting mama - it's a terrible way for everyone to wake up.

SJ, looking up at the ceiling: And then you saw the chickens and I saw the chickens and not from my bed but in the SKY.

I was tempted to follow up with "I'm an excellent driver, and excellent driver" but hate to laugh alone so early in the morning.

Gregg decided to take a stab at it.

G: Why did you hit mama and yell this morning?

SJ: Beause I yelled and hit mama.

G: But why?

SJ: But why?

He is either a brilliant strategist or no more of a morning person than either of his parents. Either way, we decided to call it a draw and take my mother's approach — let's pretend it never happened and then bring it up in 30 years in a way that is advantageous to us and could possibly, finally, help us win an argument with him.

An uneasy truce

Hurricane Shawn Joaquin has been downgraded to a Category 4 from a Category 5, though winds may pick up tomorrow when he realizes he's being booted to the door for school again. He will no doubt suspect that in his absence Madelena and I will eat pizza and corn on the cob followed by ice cream, watch endless episodes of Diego and Dora, drink gallons of milk, never nap and miraculously never have to use the bathroom— an oh-so-annoying pit stop that prevents him from playing, eating, reading or doing any other activity non-stop. But on this day we are enjoyed fewer fits and more moments of genuine affection, and believe that perhaps he is not so much possessed as obsessed.

My first clue about his obsession with me, so inexorably and inextricably bound to his love/hate for me, was at bedtime one night last week. As I left the room I wasn't slammed with demands to tinkle, drink or straighten his rug. Instead he clung to me and wailed "don't leave me, Mama, peeeeeeeeese, peeeeeese peeeeeeeeeeeeese don't leave me! You can sleep on my rug! You can sleep on my bed! Don't leave me and use the key and lock me in!" After first doing a double take on the key mention (his door has no lock), I realized he was terrified of losing contact with me. Instead of demanding he stay in bed and start losing those things near and dear to him if he were to launch himself out of bed and screaming into the hall, I told him I would leave his door open and be just across the hall if he needed me. He still got up 10 times, but each time asked in a calm voice "What Mama doing NOW? Why she doing THAT?" and once he received his requested info, hit the bed again.

For the first night in 3 weeks he stayed in bed through the wee hours of the morning and woke us at 7am instead of dawn and with the call of "Mamaaaaa.... I’m coming to see you" instead of banshee-like screaming as he propelled his damp body down the hall. There were no thrown jars of mustard that day (sorry Rick and Anne's Cafe), no slapping of his own leg as he bellowed and sputtered "PUH-LEASE! PUH-LEASE!” and only one attempt to step on his sister's hand, four slaps to my head and six fist pounding declarations of "NO!!!!” Given that only a week before he was choking his classmates and scratching his own eyes out, this seemed to be progress.

I'm sure that part of the reason for Shawn Joaquin's dismay is the clearly false advertising — he had been told his sister would love him, think him amazing and funny and an object of adoration. Instead she screams every time he tries to hug or kiss her, though in her defense he often chooses moments when she's on the move and is thus perceived merely as an obstacle that stands between her and the remote/toy/dog/cat/bottle/bug that she has her eye on. For a year she was billed as the one-person Shawn Joaquin fan club, and here she is rebuffing him, stealing his toys, his mother and all the time that should be HIS ALL HIS AND NO ONE ELSE'S. Surely, EVERYONE KNOWS THAT.

Tomorrow he will set off for school with his new Thomas the Tank Engine lunch box, one of the many gifts he has received and will continue to receive in order to curry his favor or at least diminish the number of smacks to my head. I will breathe, albeit with guilt, a sigh of relief...knowing I can finally show affection for Madelena for at least 3.5 hours without fearing the wrath of my little stalker, the one always on the lookout for a misplaced hug, kiss or smile that clearly should have gone to HIM, not the interloper among us.